Country Background Information
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a
constitutional republic in West Africa. The country consists of
three provinces and one area, which includes the capital city,
Freetown. The name Sierra Leone was adapted from the Portuguese name
for the country: Serra Leoa, literally "Lion Mountain Range".
Sierra
Leone has moving history with many ups and downs, but one of the
deepest points of the latest era having impact on the current
situation of our country was the 10-year civil war. This war lasted
from 1991 till the beginning of 2002 when it was officially declared
to be over. It left a devastated country behind.
Thousands of people
were killed, thousands were mutilated, thousands of children lost
their parents... The war has destroyed almost completely the
country's infrastructure. Among others, most of the educational institutions
in Sierra Leone were demolished which has led to an increased level of illiteracy
and school drop-outs resulting in even bigger poverty. As if this
wasn't bad enough, most of the children have acquired mentally related sicknesses such as post traumatic stress disorders (PTSD).
At this moment, Sierra Leone is 2nd poorest country in the world...
Binta's Angels Network Background Information
The situation in our home country is worrying all Sierra
Leonese people. Not only those living in Sierra Leone and
experiencing the bad living conditions day by day, but also those
who emigrated before or during the war. Many of them live in USA,
UK, but also in Holland we have a strong community of people from
Sierra Leone. In their new homes they experience the safety and
higher standard of living and it clashes in their minds with the
memories of their life back in Sierra Leone. And they want to help.
One of them, a young lady called Binta Jalloh who lives in Holland
now, therefore decided to found a charitable organization which has
a goal to help people and especially children in her home country to
get better lives.
As a result, Binta's Angels Network was founded on 20th December
2006.
Our Activities
Our organization has a couple of goals. Nevertheless, Sierra
Leone is a big country and we have limited man-power and financial
resources so we need to prioritize.
At this moment we are active in the North of Sierra Leone, around
the city of Kabala in Koinadugu district. Our primer focus is to
improve the educational system in this area by renovating old and
building new schools to fit the local conditions (number of
children, their age, general hygienical requirements) and searching
for volunteers to give a hand to the local pedagogical staff. By
doing this we hope to bring necessary structure and better
conditions as well as passing on to children the feeling of
importance regarding their own education. Parallelly we also need to
address the necessity to de-traumatize these children and integrate
them into society. Both of these projects are being developed and we
plan to do first steps of execution in the beginning of year 2008.
Next to this, we are developing a program addressing adults. This program will offer workshops and hand-craft courses to allow local people to create original products which will be exported and sold outside the country bringing cash-flow to the region.
Last but not least - to be able to help people in the Koinadugu district with immediate effect, we collect clothes, home equipment and food which we ship to Sierra Leone and distribute personally to make sure it reaches the needy ones. We also collect toys and teddy bears to bring a piece of joy to as many children possible.
