Posts by Miriam Mason

EducAid Lumley IT room in action. Project work. EducAid Rolal IT room in action. A couple of months ago, EducAid received a good number of 2nd hand computers from a partner school in the UK.  The idea was to boost the ICT department and get computers into all schools for staff and students to get…

From time to time, people hear of EducAid’s work and volunteer to come over and help out for a period. We have had a few youngsters nearing the end of their formal education and now a small number of teachers at the other end of their careers. Pat Payton, retired as a chemistry teacher from…

The visitors brought over piles of boxes of collected goodies for EducAid. You can get more on there than that.  This is Sierra Leone! Brima, temporary tour guide, with some of his guests. First on the ferry across to Freetown from Lungi, where the international airport is. For a long time, EducAid has been friends…

A spot of after class down time. The Junior staff spend their school holidays in teacher training classes but relax a little with a football at the end of the day. A year ago, EducAid began supporting a pilot distance teacher training course in the Port Loko Teachers’ College.   Currently, only around 40% of teachers…

EducAid has been running its own schools for just over ten years in Sierra Leone.  The challenges, hurdles and blockages have been enormous.  So many of those we expected to help us, actually made life more difficult.  It is hard to not assume that, in a country where providing education is a business not a…

For some reason, during the war, anything with equipment of any sort (and the more incomprehensible the more it was the case) became a target for the rebels.  Schools were burned down but laboratories seemed to rouse an additional level of frustration and nearly all school labs and equipment were destroyed. Now, great swathes of…

Sheku Turay, 20, disappeared from the Freetown school a few months ago and after many enquiries we eventually found that he was staying with a distant relative and was seriously ill in the Magbeni community. He was losing weight dramatically but had only been treated with local medicines.  AA, the lead teacher in Magbeni, intervened…

Offloading stuff at Magbeni, a couple of stops before their final destination. Nervous grins as Max and Charlie move into their new accommodation. Chez Max and Charlie for the next few months. Moved in and working out their next steps. From the wilds of North London to the wilds of Maforki chiefdom, Port Loko district.…

For those of you that have followed the ups and downs of Jimiyke’s progress over the last 18 months, these pictures will gladden your hearts.  After an extremely traumatic childhood, Jimiyke turned his life round when given the opportunity of free education, even becoming head boy when he reached the top of the school.  Just…

Yahyah Kamara and Musa Bundu, both 19 on 1st January 2011. Yahyah is head boy and Musa is his deputy.  Delightful and highly intelligent boys, they are also products of the EducAid Magbeni Junior Secondary School. Why do we carry on battling against the odds in a community as difficult as Magbeni?  Yahyah and Musa…

Early morning in paradise.  The unromantically named Number 2 River Beach is one of the most gorgeous places imaginable.  Two days with nothing to do but read, swim, play, eat and drink, it was hard to imagine there were places in trouble in the same world. Maybe needless to say, the illusion did not last…

Christmas Eve celebration in the library before bedtime for little people. Full fat socks everywhere. And more and more of them….. Somebody’s been busy tonight. ABJ has found something with his name on it. Tee getting to the bottom of his sock. When we sent home all those that had another home to go to,…

Jennifer Thomas, left EducAid in 2006 and graduated Dec 2010 from Fourah Bay College, Freetown. While Moses has stayed at the heart of EducAid throughout his studies, Jennifer lived in her family home and was not so frequently to be seen. It is great though to see that, despite all the enormous pressures against girls…

The ceremonies begin. Carried away by his excited EducAid colleagues. Mammy Yabundu (Alhassan’s mother) with one of her many adopted children. One proud Moses! A well-earned party! Queueing to receive their reward. Moses, founder pupil of EducAid as of September 2000, has graduated.  This achievement represents the most extraordinary battle with corruption and incompetence that…

Musa Koroma, former EducAid student won a scholarship to go to study engineering in Russia some months ago.  It has been an almighty challenge to get from that point to the point of actual departure never mind arrival in situ. After endless delays due to diplomatic problems between the two governments, numerous additional charges to…

Great thanks and appreciation go to my French cousin by marriage, Caroline Rittener.  Caroline is the creative spirit and brain behind Amae Creation [website: http://AmaeCreation.com].   Caroline’s new enterprise is in Spain but she is also keen to ensure that she has a positive impact elsewhere too.  Amae donates 5€ to Educaid Sierra Leone for each…

French / British lawyer, Marie-Aimée, has just got back to the UK after a stint in Sierra Leone working on Justice Sector Reform.  (There is, as I am sure you can imagine, significant need for it!) She has done some fantastic work with the girls looking at self-esteem and how it can affect their relationships.…

This week, on a hot, humid and sunny morning in Port Loko the Furlonge EducAid Senior Secondary School was opened. Peter Furlonge who, with his brother, had financed the construction, came specially with some friends and colleagues from the UK to officially open the new senior secondary school which has been built on the same…