Sierra Leone is the 14th poorest country in the world, with 60 percent of the population living in extreme poverty. Decades of economic decline and 11 years of armed conflict had dramatic consequences on the economy. Approximately 70% of youth are underemployed or unemployed and an estimated 800,000 youth today are actively searching for employment.  Furthermore, illiteracy remains a persistent challenge and youth that lack skills and education find it extremely difficult to compete for the limited jobs available. Unemployment and illiteracy levels remain high, particularly among youth.

We are currently working in Sierra Leone where so far, we have built three schools in remote villages which accommodate more than 1000 children as well as illiterate adults. We are also teaching environmental issues and ways to protect the vanishing wildlife. We teach hygiene, health and contraception.  We are building 2 more primary schools in 2020 as well as our first secondary school.

We are training the local community to become teachers, you know that idiom ‘you can give a man a fish or teach him to catch his own’.  That’s our policy.  

We work with Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary, sponsoring chimpanzees. We take children from each school into the sanctuary to learn about the habitat and the importance of protecting the animals, how not to eat them or have them as pets.

Incredibly, 100s of women have signed a Memorandum of Understanding by thumbprint, agreeing not to perform Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). An incredible achievement in that they have agreed to swap their knives for agricultural tools and seeds for a different form of income.  The children will be checked monthly by nurse, to ensure no cutting has taken place. The communities have also agreed not to force child brides.

We have installed the first solar system that this part of Africa has ever seen; simply life changing,

We are about to embark on training the women in soap making, bead making and tailoring.

We have earned the nickname in Sierra Leone of ‘talk and do’.