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…

There are large numbers of Sierra Leonean youngsters who were taken off into the war and forced to do unspeakable things and who are still suffering from the effects. The majority get little help beyond the long finished 6 month official disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation programmes. Equally, most go on into life with many key issues…

Rightly proud of their achievement!Another happy Maronka tale… Maronka continues to be a community where everyone can do their best. We started a primary school, pretty much by mistake, some six years ago when we gave the chief some blackboards and chalk to start some alphabet classes for the little ones who were to small…

Augustine Bundor, doctor in training. Two years in a row, we have had young medical students [EducAid graduates], who we knew to be excellent and diligent, kicked out of the medical college at the point of entry into the medical school proper i.e. after 2 very expensive but obligatory preparatory years. No questions were permitted…

This is a photo of Macsud’s ‘lifeline’ constructed by him in November 2008. The rocks indicate the hard things. The flowers indicate the happy things. The green rope indicates the passing of time. Clearly life had been getting better. Now it has been prematurely cut short. Early this morning, Macsud Bangura [16] died, it appears,…

The WASSCE results are out. Sierra Leonean students sit NPSE at the end of primary school, BECE at the end of Junior Secondary School [Key Stage 3 equivalent] and WASSCE at the end of Senior Secondary School [i.e. university entrance qualifying exams]. In general, the pass rates across the country are more than dismal. On…

A big cleaning and organising task, sorting construction and other toys for the resource library. Making sure that the education that goes on inside our new building is just as excellent as the building itself.The North of Sierra Leone has traditionally neglected education in favour of trade. The main towns of Kambia, Makeni and Port…