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Sierra Leone

SIERRA LEONE - Recognised as the world’s poorest country

Real Aid has been working in Sierra Leone since 2001 where the people have over the last fifteen years have suffered great hardship. This is mainly due to the conflict within the country during the nineties where many of the civil population where killed, displaced, mutilated, forced into rebel armies and prostitution, depriving them of their basic human rights.  

The work that Real Aid undertakes in Sierra Leone is long term development, with primary education, young person training and healthcare needs of the least fortunate within the populace being the focus.

Community projects include:-

►The John Mahon Community Education Centre, Sussex

This centre is a Real Aid-funded vocational school located in Sussex a village on the isolated Freetown peninsula. The centre opened in November 2004 and is named after the late John Mahon, Real Aid’s first country director, who unfortunately died from Malaria in 2003.  

The vocational school offers new opportunities in carpentry, tailoring, literacy and numeracy as means of offering new opportunities due a decline in sea fishing.  This will provide students with essential skills to gain employment and contribute towards future progress.  In November 2006 the school held its first graduation ceremony.

During the rainy season of 2007 much damage was done to the school, Real Aid will provide funding to re-build a new permanent carpentry workshop.

 ►Income Generation Programs

Bumpe Ngao Chiefdom

Small Business Initiatives Program Mokoba & Mokpende Village

Traditional soap manufacture

Real Aid recently funded a proposal and trained several people of Mokoba and Mokpende Villages in the production of traditionally made personal and clothes washing soaps. These soaps are manufactured by simple machinery made locally, with the soaps main ingredient being palm oil.  This is produced and supplied from palm oil plantations near to the villages. This enables communities to have greater access to washing materials as well as an income for the sale of the soap.

Carpentry workshop – Mokoba Village

This workshop was opened by local community youths under the guidance of a Master Carpenter in 2005. Today, under the supervision of an older foreman, the workshop has six-young men who regularly earn a basic wage for producing furniture or carrying out joinery work at houses/schools within the local community.

This workshop and the incomes it provides for everybody wouldn’t be possible with out the donation of carpentry tools provided by Real Aid. This workshop is a good example of what Real Aid does best, providing capacity that actually benefits the community the most, not the donor.

Tailor – Mokende

Through the donation of a sewing machine from Real Aid, Mr. Sesay, who lost everything including his previous sewing machine when he had to flee for his life during Sierra Leone’s civil war, can once again make a small living from the production and repairing of clothes in his home village. As the only tailor in Mokpende village of 3500 inhabitants with a sewing machine, he should have enough business for the foreseeable future to provide for his family.

This type of provision has been repeated all over Sierra Leone.

►Livelihoods Program

Bumpe Ngao Chiefdom

Nerica Seed Rice Multiplication Program “The Rice for Africa”

The aim of this program is to provide resources and knowledge to help community farming groups in the Chiefdom work towards food security for rice within the next 5-years. This is because presently, many rice farmers not just in Bumpe Chiefdom, but Sierra Leone as a whole, cannot produce enough rice (A West African’s staple form of carbohydrate) to feed themselves and their extended families. This under production of rice is in part due to lack of tools/capacity and the loss of much knowledge and practical skills during the countries long civil war. The present food situation leads to many people either having to go hungry at some point in the year, or to spend what little money they have, on the purchasing of expensive imported rice from Asia to feed themselves.

Long-term, the supplying of mechanical soil tillers would greatly increase the amount of land under cultivation. Not only would it increase production, it would also release people from back-breaking work of preparing the land by hand.

►Sulpon Community Preparatory School, Freetown                    

Real Aid has been working with and supporting this peninsular school for three-years.  During this time, the school has achieved the highest pass mark of any primary school on the Freetown peninsular at the national primary school exams. These exams enable students to move up from primary to secondary. This is a major achievement for this remote school, where many of the teachers and students have to travel long distances on foot to get to class everyday.

Real Aid supports the preparatory school by providing basic education materials, such as much-needed blackboards, text books, exercise books and education packs for the children. We also provide training for the teachers by having an ex-pat member of staff work with the teachers on how to deliver ABC classes for the smallest children, and literacy and numeracy education for adults in the community.  Real Aid also assists the schools by providing all nine teachers with a monthly allowance to support them for all the hard work they carry out.  

►Expectant Mothers and Infant Vaccination Program, Goderich, Western Area

Sierra Leone has a child mortality rate of 165/1000 for infants under one and 283/1000 for under-fives. The under-fives figure is the worst in the world according to UNICEF (2004 data). Many of these deaths are preventable if the child is properly vaccinated against childhood diseases in its first year of its life.  

Real Aid is working to reduce the infant mortality rates in the Western Rural Area of Sierra Leone by running a food-incentive vaccination program at the isolated Goderich Health Centre.  During the past three years this project has supported 7,000 children and mothers.  Each mother has had the choice of free rice or mother and baby toiletry packs provided from the UK.  Pregnant mothers and/or babies are encouraged to be immunised against TB, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Yellow Fever and Measles.  This form of encouraging take up of vaccination has without doubt saved many lives. 

►New Project - HIV Lunch Club, Goderich                

Real Aid has started a lunch club at Goderich for expectant mothers with HIV-AIDS.  Testing for HIV-AIDS started in this area for all expectant mothers in September 2007 and so far 20 women have proved positive.  Again the problem highlighted to Real Aid is that many of these expectant mothers will not attend the clinic for the anti-viral drugs that stops the virus crossing the placenta and infecting the unborn baby.  The stigma of HIV has a very negative effect on their lives and their families. 

To encourage these women to attend the clinic and take the required drugs Real Aid started a twice weekly lunch club.  At the lunch club they receive a good meal, support from each other, the required drugs and information.

 Mokoba Village 

Mokoba Village is in the Bumpe Ngeo Chiefdom in the Southern Province.  Though the village has a health centre the attendance is poor.  Again, to encourage more mothers to attend Real Aid offers 1Kg of rice for every mother who attends with infants for vaccination.

►Milton Margai Blind School, Freetown

Based in Freetown the school provides an education to sight-impaired children and young adults.  Some were born with sight problems, some have contracted them after suffering diseases such as measles, and some have had their sight impaired by abuse during civil conflict. 

Real Aid has donated a mini-bus to enable the school choir to sing at events in and around Freetown as well as providing educational goods, food and basic aid.  More recently Real Aid provided new mattresses, bedding and fitted mosquito nets to all beds in the schools dormitories, reducing the risk of catching malaria and yellow fever from mosquito bites.