Blog

Afri-Scot is a small shop sitting at the junction at Amputee Village, Sierra Leone, West Africa. Its purpose is to meet the needs of the community. Originally the shop was stocked with basic provisions but like most ARET projects in Sierra Leone it has grown.

It was inevitable that Covid 19 would eventually hit Sierra Leone. Lockdown, health and safety measures, social distancing, emergency food supplies, housing and income support that were available to us in UK were either not practical or simply not available in Sierra Leone.

We, Chris, Rachel and myself, planned this trip in November 2019 not knowing that a global pandemic would be declared by mid-March 2020.  Before we left Scotland, travelling via France, we were asked by our hosts about the virus. There was, at that time, nothing to report. The focus was not on Europe. Sierra Leone was the country most badly hit by the Ebola crisis in 2016 and had learned from the experience and knew how to respond. As we stepped from the plane the precautions and screening in place were visible. Temperatures taken, details registered, hand washing, hand washing, handwashing.

Shieldra, the school that started under a mango tree. Shieldra the project that grew wings and flew. Shieldra, the project that shouts, ‘I am not finished yet.’

Arriving we were delighted to recognise faces from our previous visit. Abdulai and his team certainly went out of their way to entertain us. After the introductory speech we were very touched to receive a plaque from the Adonkia Adult Community Education Trust thanking ARET for the support and the opportunity to develop not only in basic skills but also as a supportive community.

Rogbonko, the place in the forest. This was my third visit, Rachel’s second and Chris’s first. We knew it would be a long drive and we had planned to make a stop at Amputee Village in the Western Area Rural District to drop off two large bags of supplies. Amputee is a village some 20 miles out of Freetown and from previous experience I did not expect a comfortable drive

Not every story from Sierra Leone and ARET is happy. Sometimes it is hard not to sit down and put your head in your hands and cry. There are examples of human suffering and tragedy in both the Adult Education Class in Adonkia and also in Shieldra. Sometimes we can help; sometimes help is a little too late; and sometimes help is not at all.

Not the easiest project to embark on.

Given that ARET is a new charity, a small charity with a very modest income deciding to go ahead with this project was a great leap of faith. The obstacles of inflation, transferring money, difficulties in communication, misunderstanding created many a sleepless night.

Adonkia Community Adult School continues to be a vibrant opportunity in the community. When we visited them in 2018 they had great hopes of developing and moving forward. They wanted to be able to develop the following:

more places made available

crèche facility

numeracy classes

opportunity to learn skills such as batik, tailoring, basic mechanics, decorating, wood working etc

by Abdulai Sankoh

Ambassador Alec Russell Education Trust

MAKENI:

My visit to Makeni was a remarkable one, ARET is presently supporting a boy by the name of Kemoh who is  one of the beneficiaries from Rogbonko Village community. He was enrolled at the UNIMac University Makeni last academic year through the support of ARET . Kemoh had completely lost educational hope because his mother just could not consider letting him drop his work in the fields to study for university entrance exams let alone be able to afford his University fees. But sometimes dreams actually do take shape and happen.