Project SIerra- More stories from the January Study Tour

I have been on a life changing Study Tour to Sierra Leone and since I returned I want to share some experiences and thoughts with those who log on!
Project Sierra is an excellent partnership project- you can be assured of that! We are making a big difference to the lives of many women and girls through our contributions raised in so many innovative ways around the world.
We met 2 young women working in hotels we stayed at in Bo and Makeni- they had been in the ‘Teenage Mothers’ programme. They had completed their schooling, trained in catering and obtained these positions. They were now independent- had places to live and care for their children. They were full of praise for HANCI (Help a Needy Child in Sierra Leone) the NGO through which Hope and Homes works in Sierra Leone. What mattered to them was that HANCI keeps on supporting them- making sure that they are coping and are happily settled in their careers.
We were welcomed everywhere we went in exuberant fashion with acrobatics, dancing and singing followed by speeches and more dancing and singing and often roleplay. How humble I felt when they could not thank us enough for all we had done for them- they have nothing compared with us and I knew that we need to give more!!
In each community we were graciously welcomed and given food beautifully prepared and served as well as 2 goats from one community! Exporting them could have been a problem so they went to one of the other projects!
There are many pictures I could paint of our Study Tour January 2010 but do read the new e-TIS in March and also visit the SI website where there will be a longer account of our visit. It was well planned by Hope and Homes and Jo and Kirsty, who accompanied us, made the whole experience special. HANCI staff were thrilled that we were there and I feel that I must emphasise again what amazing work they are doing in such poverty stricken circumstances. In one village we visited we were told of the respect the community has for HANCI-they are they only NGO working there (it was a long journey to get there). They say that not only do they come and talk with the community about what is needed- they then start work and stay and develop the work- they do not leave. A very heart felt tribute in a country where many NGO’s come and go.
The memories I carry with me are precious! Speaking with the First Lady- she invited us to meet with her, meetings with the media in Bo, Makeni and Freetown (the latter becoming front page news!!!), talking with the benefactors of the projects, dancing with the welcomers as we were received rapturously, meeting a group of ladies in Makeni who are so keen to be Soroptimists, shaking many, many people by the hand using the African handshake, driving on ‘interesting roads’ and seeing how Christrians and Muslims live side by side and respect each other.
Alison, our SI Project Liaison, helped in every way she could to make our stay enable us to understand Sierra Leone and the difficulties the country faces.
I have left a little of my heart in that country!
Margaret Cook International Assistant Programme Director




Think Global- Gina- Study Tour participant from SISWP
In Sierra Leone, the signs of an increasingly globalised world were all around. We drove past signs for a German bank, drank water with labels written in French and Arabic, were greeted at the airport with a sign for Coca-Cola and every day saw NGOs from the USA, Netherlands, UK, Denmark, China and countless others. Nestle’s reputation for exploiting coffee farmers in West Africa, little sachets of their coffee showed up at our breakfast table every morning. Sierra Leone is also rich in natural resources, exporting bauxite, rutile, coffee, cocoa and fish on top of their most famous export, diamonds. It occurred to me during my trip to Sierra Leone that this country was one of many. In just about any country in the world you can find global influences, good and bad. Which is why it makes no sense to dismiss the problems of developing nations as being someone else’s responsibility when you live in a wealthy, developed country. If wealthy nations want to get rich off the resources of poor nations and sell their products in developing country markets, then to me it’s not a great leap in logic that there is something missing in the equation. The world is ever-interdependent, and the problems of the world’s poor are problems for us all.