Sierra Leonne Journal, April 2007
Hopefully you have seen the film of Sierra Leone we sent you the link for, but if not please look at
www.youtube.com
WTN has just returned from another visit and we are able to provide this update.
In brief, it was brilliant. As you know the water pump, overhead water tanks, rain water harvesting and livelihood programmes have all been completed in Gbongay.
They have now started all of the ten toilets and one was virtually complete with the others expected to be finished by the end of May.
It was a similar story at the nearby village of Njagbema for which WTN USA raised the money.
Here they have installed a new well and we have agreed to pay to have the second well shaft cleaned so a new pump could be installed. The blocks for their new toilets had been made and were sitting in their respective locations ready for construction.
We need to consider the way the blocks are made as they are still using cement, which is against our eco-strategy. We are researching a way to test the local soil to see whether it is suitable for CEBs and if so we will provide the necessary equipment.
Currently we are spending a lot of money on transporting good quality building sand and if we are to continue our work in this and the surrounding chiefdoms, it may make sense to provide them with a tractor and trailer.
This time we were accompanied by Bob Parfitt who we used to join on our humanitarian aid journeys to The Balkans. Hopefully in the future we will be able to find sponsors for containers to ship the goods that Bob is so very good at finding! He was quite moved by the Blind School in Bo and has already started collecting for them.
The two villages in which we are currently working celebrated our visit by recommencing a joint dance that had not been seen for twenty years.
We walked through the forest to Njagbema and then massed in a large group singing and dancing waiting for the host villagers to do the same. We met in the middle of their village and as we merged all hell broke loose and everyone started singing and dancing.
It really was indescribable.
The usual thanks were given in the speeches afterwards for us to pass on to you all, and everyone kept asking for a new school!
There were three things of note.
The first was that since we started working with them, the women of Gbongay, Njagbema, Helabu and Koiva have started saving small amounts of money in readiness for a micro-credit scheme. To date they have saved three million leones. That is about £520. This is an enormous sum of money for them – you really cannot imagine. We told them they had done well and because of their actions we agreed to double it. The women went ballistic!!
The second was the people of Helabu (the next village in which we start work) were there and we told them they were going to get twenty toilets for their village. The place erupted.
We were told that since we started working with them they have found a great enthusiasm and are working together in a way they have never known before. Each village has 'given' an area of land to plant rice and they are planting the rice to benefit the community. We are talking over 150 kilos of paddy rice.
Speeches over, the real dancing began and we walked back to Gbongay and we made our way back to Bo and eventually Freetown.
It is really fulfilling to work with a community that becomes more proactive each time we visit. They are not content to sit on their backsides and allow others to provide for them, they now see a future for themselves and are grasping the opportunities with both hands.
Finally, the bit you are all waiting for, Brian the Goat is fit and well. He has bulked out a bit and is dating a nice nanny and they hope to have kids in the not too distant future.
Click here for updates of our work in Sierra Leone
• May 2006
• April 2007