Project SIerra - last day

( Editor's note- I am so sad to post this last chapter- I have loved reading every moment of it and hope you have too! thanks so very much to our intrepid reporter- Andrea Mills)
Our final adventures were to Kissy and Freetown.

Today we visited the Kissy project and were given a performance by the children. The performance showed how a young girl came to find herself on the streets of Freetown pregnant and then with child.

The children were such great actors. They had developed the skit on their own. The ending showed the young woman and child getting support from the Kissy project.

We also got to tour their facilities. They are teaching the young girls to be seamstresses and hairdressers. There was even one young lady who was taking up welding.

Once again we were all overcome with all the wonderful things that are happening. The team at Hanci, Lois, Kelfar, John and Abu continue to do such wonderful work in extremely tough conditions.

We also cannot say enough about Alison and Joe. They are our Soroptimist link to the efforts and without them, we would not have the communication that is needed for a project of this size.

On Friday we met at Hanci's offices to debrief and give our comments.

Maureen Maguire brought up the issues of prevention of pregnancy. Kelfar spoke how they are utilizing radio but know that they need to get to the schools and they are working on a more face-to-face forum.

Suba Parthiban asked how Hanci was able to recruit and train such a wonderful team. Kelfar spoke about how they recruit from the communities. This helps with finding the issues, gaining trust and speaking up on the rights of women and children.

Karen Fyhring spoke about age requirements on when children are considered children. Kelfar spoke about how Sierra Leone enacted the Child Rights Act in 2008 through legislature. Currently, monitoring actions is tough but they are working on it. The legal requirement is that a child is considered a child until the age of 18.

June Gabbitas asked about if Hanci had resistance from the Chiefs for their efforts. Dr. Roland spoke about how they communicated to the Chiefs the rights of the child to slowly work to move to the rights of the woman.

After more questions, we concluded the meeting and I guess we could say our journeys.

I will not bore you with the details of getting back to the ferry, the heat or anything else, but if you would like to know someday, I will gladly share.

I would also like to say that, we Soroptimists, are not done. We still need to raise another £500,000. There are some conferences and a board meeting coming up. Also, I cannot stress enough, the importance to raise funds at the local level. We need to make our target. Please work hard at this.

I want to leave this blog with the words from a sign hanging in the small clinic we visited with six beds with mattresses about two inches thick. I also apologize if I offend anyone.

Think Wise Thoughts -

In Happy Moments - Praise God
In Difficult Moments - Seek God First
In Quiet Moments - Worship God
In Painful Moments - Trust God
At Easy Moments - Thank God