Female Genital Mutilation, Secret Societies, and the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM in Sierra Leone

By Nnamdi Eseme Content warning: Please be aware that this blog post might be upsetting for some, as it contains information about the practice and consequences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).     As today is International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (6th February), we asked Nnamdi Eseme, EducAid’s Education Programme Officer,…

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September 2017 at EducAid

September was an eventful month for everyone at EducAid. Teachers and staff gathered together for training and meetings before welcoming the children back into the classroom on 11th September. This was no small achievement after the devastation of August’s mudslide and flooding. A new facility is taking shape in Rolal and EducAid students joined the Climate…

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Mitigating Poverty

  MITIGATING POVERTY — Solving poverty is not the prerogative of educators but equalizing every student’s opportunity for success in the classroom is. Part of The Global Teachers Blog series ‘The GEM Report provides an authoritative account of how education is the most vital input for every dimension of sustainable development’ (UNESCO, 2016). The whole…

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Education is the answer. What’s the question?

Education is the answer. What’s the question? Sierra Leone has had a traumatic and traumatising few decades. I have been involved with this beautiful country since before my first visit in 1997. Since then, we have seen coups, the ending of an eleven year conflict, the ‘Ebola crisis’, annual flooding culminating in this latest round…

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Our commitment and work to implement EducAid values

EducAid has always been focussed on the impact of the change we make rather than on the number of people that we work with. We would prefer to have a major impact on a few than to have a minor impact on many; it is our vision to create a democratic, dignified and prosperous Sierra…

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UK Trip for Sierra Leonean Teachers and Leaders

    In February 2016, 10 of our Sierra Leonean staff came to the UK for teacher training, courtesy of the Steve Sinnott Foundation. Widad Worneh, Malikie ‘Leo’ Barrie, Stephen Momoh, Fatmata Bangura and Mohamed ‘Cobra’ Bangura told us what they’d learnt and how they would take their experiences back to Sierra Leone to improve…

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Lucy Howling – Mellor’s Rose Queen

There are few better examples of our community’s dedication than the story of Lucy who, as Mellor’s 2015/16 Rose Queen, chose to support EducAid in the fundraising events she organised for her village. Over the past 8 months Lucy has been working hard to organise events for her community – these events have a great…

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After Ebola: Sillah’s Journey to EducAid

The World Bank identifies “orphans and vulnerable children” as a group requiring special consideration and intervention to protect them from a high likelihood of “negative outcomes.” These children “are more exposed to risks than their peers” and “most likely to fall through the cracks of regular programs.” These are the children that experience “loss of…

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Sew for Sierra Leone: Joan Keeps Going

Back in April we wrote about the ladies from District 9 of the Inner Wheels Club. They had hand-made over 400 sleeping bags that eventually contributed to the largest shipment of donations that we’ve ever sent to Sierra Leone. This is what I wrote at the time: “Great fun was had by the ladies from…

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EducAid Community Working Together: Lloyd Igunbor & Carolyne Beckett

Lloyd Igunbor – one of Miriam’s past students from Salesian College, Battersea – has spent the past couple of months organising and packing a container full of donations destined for Freetown. He has been travelling around the country picking up donated items from collection centres – usually friends and family of the charity – in…

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Miriam Presents Medals to 820 Naval Air Squadron

Members of the 820 Naval Air Squadron invited Miriam Mason-Sesay to their Operational Medal Ceremony at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose last week. Not only were Miriam and her son, Kofi, in attendance, but Miriam was invited to present the medals to the serving officers. The 820 Squadron had been deployed on the RFA Argus…

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World of Children Education Award Winner: Miriam Mason-Sesay

This month, Miriam Mason-Sesay was bestowed an honour that few are worthy of. The World of Children award is an extremely prestigious and unique organisation that scours the plantet each year for the most effective change-makers for children worldwide, thus improving the lives of the most vulnerable. The World of Children describes itself as an…

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Sweet Salone……..Lurching from one crisis to another

Wilkinson Road flooded with cars swimming through the flood waters. Credit: M & R Ropiecki Extraordinary scenes in Freetown for the last few days.  Sierra Leone is back in the news again! For a good reason this time? Sadly not! We had gone off the international media radar for many years, when the film Blood…

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Rearrangement of the school year after Ebola

Let’s keep focused! Multiple, multiple changes to the academic year have had extraordinary knock on consequences for Sierra Leone’s children.  To start with, during the whole Ebola crisis, students missed 8 months of schooling. This, in a country where academic standards tend to be horrendously low and education is itself already in crisis and has…

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Lucy Howling – Mellor Rose Queen 2015-16

   Hello, I’m Lucy! This year I am Mellor Rose-Queen. The tradition of crowning a young girl as Rose Queen developed in the farming communities of Northern England as part of the celebration of and thanksgiving for the growth of the food crops. Today, in Mellor, this tradition continues but the role of the Rose Queen and her team…

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Musa Koroma B.ENG. – From Sierra Leone to St. Petersburg

Opportunity, chance, and fortune can play such a big part in Sierra Leone sometimes. The proximity of absolute poverty to daily life means that only the smallest bump in the road can lead to genuinely terrible consequences. Musa Koroma, on leaving Bo School due to unpaid school fees, faced a bleak future that so many…

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The Progress of the Vaccines

Back in January, I wrote a blog post about the on-going vaccine trials that were providing hopeful signs to find a permanent preventative drug against Ebola. We can all agree that this is the most permanent way for the global community to prevent another outbreak of this virus. As Ebola recedes, and Liberia is declared…

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Liberia declared Free from Ebola

Yesterday, Liberia became the first of the three countries at the centre of the Ebola outbreak to have been declared free from the virus, after 42 days of no new cases. In response to the WHO announcement, the government encouraged the country to have a day of celebration, as can be seen in the photos.…

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Kabiru Mansaray: “There are others not as fortunate as us.”

The Guardian website published a video last week covering some of the difficulties that Sierra Leonean students were facing when returning back to school. Fortunately, a student at EducAid highlighted just why our value-based fees our so important. As is common throughout all national schools, students are required to pay school fees, buy school uniforms,…

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Our trip to Resonate Connect

Wednesday night, a crack team of EducAid trustees, staff, donors, and volunteers travelled to Manchester Cathedral to meet over 100 businessmen and women from all around the City. Resonate is a 3rd Sector recruitment company, and they had invited us all there to launch their new business-to-charity skills platform that would facilitate the private sector…

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