SIERRA LEONE RESOURCES

Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership—www.SLPP.org

SIERRA LEONE-PLYMOUTH PARTNERSHIP
1900 NICOLLET AVE.
MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55403,  (612) 871-7400

      
 PCC
     
    
   
 RJ.net

  @
 IHCC

 

SLPP 
Web Site
Home Page 

Web Site Home Page

Webs, Books, Films

Trips, Journals, Photos

Articles/Reprints

 Profiles of Students

Contact Us

              

On This Home Page

 

Welcome to this web site
and to the SLPP 
à

           

Photos from June 2008 Trip  à

          

June 2008 Trip Fantastic!  à

                

Focus on Fundraising click here or scroll down in middle column.

        

Photos from 2007 Trip: "Portraits from Sierra Leone"  Click here or scroll down in right column. à

                     

About Sierra Leone - A Brief History: click here or scroll down in right column.         

                       

Web Sites for SL Travelers click here or scroll down in this column.

             

Goals of the SLPP - see below.         

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Goals of the SLPP

  

The Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership has three goals:

           

(1) To raise money from a variety of wider Twin Cities sources offer improved housing, education, health, and other benefits that will help villagers become more able to work and be more productive in their farming economy and related activities using the U.N. "Millennium Villages" model.

  

(2) To bring together volunteer traveler-workers for regular trips to the three nearby villages of Foindu, Jokibu, and Pujehun to live with  villagers, work with their committees to help them, and experience a Third-World country that the UN considers the second poorest in the world.

  

(3) To consider and provide other long-term aid that will help give the villages what well-respected Third-World economist Jeffrey Sachs calls the first rung up on the ladder of economic development so that they may eventually become self-sustaining and serve as an example to their district and country. 

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Web Sites Especially for People Going to Sierra Leone
 

(These sites also are among the many you can find on the Webs-Books-Films page.)
                  

(1) Sierra Leone - The CIA World Factbook: www.cia.gov/cia/
publications/factbook/geos/
sl.html
    
(2) Most Recent and Best Statistics by U.S. Department of State: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/
bgn/5475.htm 
    

(3) Health Information for Travelers to Countries in West Africa, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov/travel/
wafrica.htm#country

    

(4) New York Times Travel Article tells it like it is in Sierra Leone.

    

(5) Please also see the Webs, Books, Films page.

 

 

                                            

SIERRA LEONE RESOURCES
WEB SITE
- HOME PAGE of SLPP.org
 

Welcome to the "Sierra Leone Resources Web Site," home of SLPP.org!"  "SLPP" means "Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership (see below).  Readership of this web site includes a wide cross section of SLPP members, citizens of Sierra Leone, immigrants living in the United States, researchers, and other friends of Sierra Leone.  How may you use this web site?  Click on the section with the link above called Webs, Books, Films for an unusually long list of resources about Sierra Leone.  Click on Trips, Journals, Photos, above, and Articles/Reprints" for interesting stories, photos, and help about SLPP and for Sierra Leone research, history, and travel.  Go to Profiles of Students to see several SLPP scholarship students.  We hope you enjoy SLPP.org!
           

                     

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Welcome to the Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership, or "SLPP"!  SLPP is a long-term, independent partnership between Sierra Leone and Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.  The "SLPP" was created in spring 2005 by  former Peace Corps volunteer Jeff Hall as a way for people to become aware of conditions in Africa and to offer specific, dynamic forms of help.  Jeff lived in the Sierra Leonean village of Jokibu for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early 1990s, and he has returned several times in recent years and now leads a yearly group trip to Jokibu and its two sister villages Foindu and Pujehun.      

                         

Sierra Leone itself is a small, coastal, West African country between Guinea and Liberia. Its capital, Freetown, once was a major slave trading port for the Americas and also became a major center for the repatriation of slaves.  The village of Jokibu, near Sierra Leone’s eastern border, along with its nearby sister villages, Foindu and Pujehun, were devastated during the region’s 1990s "blood diamonds" civil war, their buildings abandoned and destroyed, and their residents scattered to the jungle and, later, to refugee camps..  However, civil strife ended in 2002; in 2003-4, villagers began returning to rebuild.  Now Sierra Leone is a peaceful and successful democracy.  The SLPP is helping all three of these villages. 

     

Jeff volunteers his time to coordinate the Partnership and SLPP Committee. His close friendships both with villagers and with the owners of a building-supply store in the nearby town of Kenema make it possible for him to personally and directly order goods, transfer money, and keep accurate, detailed accounting and installation records, including photographs.


         

This family is standing in front of two houses with different roofs: one is the new, much more permanent sheet-metal roofing supplied by SLPP; the other is the old canvas roofing that wears out quickly, allowing water to leak and destroy the house's walls.  SLPP has supplied 400+ roofs to the three eastern Sierra Leone villages of Foindu, Jokibu, and Pujehun. 

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Focus on Fundraising

                              

Educational Excellence

                        

2008 Goal: $150,000

 

Mosquito Nets + Latrines

Micro Loans + Food

               

Village-based Economic Development

by Jeff Hall, SLPP Coordinator

             

What incredible progress we have made together in Sierra Leone in a few short years!   Our unique, broad and holistic approach is paying dividends.  As our village friends continue to recover from their tragic war that ended in 2001, your amazing generosity ($100,000+/yr) has had these dramatic results:

  • 400  metal roofs will give shelter for decades, allowing farmers to concentrate on more food production;

  • Each village has 4 new clean water wells, which is the quickest way to improve basic health;

  • A new school addition in Jokibu means each grade has its own classroom, reducing class size to 40 kids;

  • Over 200 school scholarships per year, with the goal for all kids, especially girls, complete high school; and

  • Other successes, such as peanut grinders for the women, plenty of school and medical supplies, and more.

 This June, 24 of us return on our annual visit to monitor progress, develop new strategies and keep building our friendships.  New partners join our effort, with 7 students and 2 teachers from The Blake School and 5 Amherst College students who will spend two months as summer interns in the villages.  Additional AC students will visit for up to 4 months in the Fall.  Our annual week-long village visits provide a unique perspective on life; we are amazed anew each year at the persistence, hard work, creativity, joy and love of our village partners.

              

The quality of life in our villages is improving measurably each year, yet much work remains to give our friends the opportunity to become self-sufficient and raise their incomes.  Our goal is to raise $150,000 for latrines, mosquito nets and micro loans this year, along with continued strong support for educational initiatives such as school lunches, scholarships, books and teacher support.  Worms and diarrhea are major health problems, and the use of latrines will substantially reduce these illnesses.  Malaria is the top killer in the villages, especially of young children.  A simple net keeps one safe during the night, rather than being attacked by infected mosquitoes.  Latrines and mosquito nets are two simple, proven solutions to devastating, persistent problems.  With your help we can wipe out malaria, worms and diarrhea.

          

Raising income is our top long-term priority, because it is the only way to attack poverty.  Reaching our goals of raising $50,000 for micro loans will play a major role; small loans to soap making and bike rental businesses have already created jobs and increased income.  Over 95% of the people are subsistence farmers, and micro loans allow them to increase substantially their income from their hard work producing crops.  Farmers, desperate for cash, tend to sell much of the produce (rice, cocoa, coffee, palm oil) at harvest time, when prices are low.  A small loan allows farmers to hold their produce for a few months as the prices steadily rise, so they can sell at a much higher profit for the same amount of work.  Our program also builds management skills among the farmers and leadership ability within the village.

         

Please help us provide emergency rice to prevent widespread malnourishmentFood prices around the world are rising, and in Sierra Leone rice has increased from $20/bag to nearly $50.  While in the long-term this may encourage more rice production, our farmers are not yet self-sufficient.  “Hungry Season” occurs July through September, before the rice harvest, when everyone in the country is short of rice; this year’s Hungry Season may be devastating.  Please send your donation today so we can see it in action during our June trip!

               

We believe our village project is the best investment you can possibly make in the world, with 100% of your donation going straight to the villages.  For an investment of only $20 - $30 for each of our 5,000 friends, we are giving the poorest people in the world the greatest possible gift:  confidence that tomorrow will be better than today, that their children’s lives will continue to improve.  Our deepest gratitude for your support.

                  

For more information about our Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership, please go to www.SLPP.org.

    

Thank you for your tax deductible donation.  Please make your check out to Plymouth Church - Sierra Leone, and mail it to:

 

Plymouth Church, Sierra Leone Project; 1900 Nicollet Ave. S.; Minneapolis, MN 55403

 

    

                                     

This woman is preparing palm nuts
to make palm oil for food and for sale.

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Hard-working students need supplies.

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Mosquito net fights malaria.

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Micro loans increase income.
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Latrines improve sanitation.

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Work develops a
U.S.-Sierra Leone friendship.

         

June 2008 Trip Photos
- Click here!

    

2008 Focus on Fundraising -
Village-based Economic Development!  Scroll down in middle column or
click here.

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June 2008 Trip Fantastic!

by Jeff Hall, Coordinator

    

I wanted to let you know, if you haven't heard, that our June 2008 trip was fantastic! We had a wonderful group of 24 people, including 5 college students, 3 teachers and 8 high school students.  Many thanks for your support and encouragement!  Our friends in the village are working extremely hard to improve their lives, and our actions together are having a tremendous impact.  The villages warmly embraced the basic health ideas we brought, including mosquito nets, latrines, and frequent washing of hands.  Taken together, these actions will nearly eliminate malaria (#1 killer) and reduce diarrhea and womrs up to 50%.  In addition, our farmers now recongize the pricing patterns on their commodities and are eager to take advantage of selling later when prices are higher, and are very eager for more of our micro loans so they can earn money from their hard work.

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(See photos of the 2008 trip at (http://cqphotos.com/sl/.)

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"Made Real: Portraits from Sierra Leone"

                     

                        

        

An Artistic Photo Series
by Chris Bohnhoff
    

                See www.chrisbohnhoff.com,
612.250.8084, for photos of the 2007 trip that may be purchased as artistic prints.  All profits go directly to helping villagers in the the Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership.

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About Sierra Leone
- A Brief History

                    

Sierra Leone is a small, beautiful tropical country in West Africa between Guinea and Liberia.  It is on the Atlantic coast in the southwest corner of the left or west "hump" of the continent.  It is about 28,000 square miles in size with a population of six million.  It is primarily agricultural with rich natural resources such as raw diamonds, chrome, bauxite, and iron ore. 

   

As a British colony it was home in the 1700-1800s to three island holding areas for shipping slaves to America.  The major city and capitol, Freetown, later developed as an experiment in repatriation of former slaves. 

  

Sierra Leone received its freedom in 1961.  The official language is English, but the common language is a patois of English and native languages called Krio.  In remote villages, because English is taught in the schools, perhaps a third of Sierra Leoneans can speak it, along with their own tribal language.
              

Sierra Leone is second-lowest on the UN Human Development Index, partly because of its terrible 1990s civil conflicts funded largely by its raw "blood diamonds."   80% of citizens were displaced, 60,000-90,000 were killed, and 20,000 or more had their hands, limbs, or other body parts cut off.  The conflict initially started when Liberian civil unrest spilled over into eastern Sierra Leone and its raw diamond fields. 

    

A Sierra Leonean rebel group then formed--partly in response to a self-serving, unrepresentative government in Freetown and partly in response to the wealth of the diamond fields.  The rebels began a 12-year civil war embracing almost all of the country and several competing forces.  This destabilized the economy, political and cultural life, and resources throughout the nation.  Most villages were burned, often repeatedly.  A majority of the population hid in the bushes or lived in refugee camps for many years while heavily armed young soldiers--often as young as eight or ten years old--pillaged the countryside.

                 

Since 2002, however, Sierra Leone has reorganized its government peacefully and democratically.  Elections were held in 2002.  President Kabbah--who had been briefly elected for several months in the mid-1990s--won once again.  In 2007 in new elections, the opposing party's candidate won a firm majority with a peaceful turnover of power. With a democratic government at work, Sierra Leone is starting a new prosperity.  Travel there has been safe for several years.  Sierra Leoneans give outsiders warm welcomes as the capital, towns, and farming villages rebuild.  

  

   

  

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Adjusting your text size: You may find it easier to read this page if your make your text larger or smaller.  To do this in Explorer, click in the upper-left corner on "View" and then "Text."

    

Most recent revision: 6 Aug. 2008

  

Africa image courtesy Barry's Clip Art.

Written content & page design unless otherwise noted: Richard Jewell 

Photos unless otherwise noted: © 2004-8 by Jeff Hall, Richard Jewell, other members of the Sierra Leone-Plymouth Partnership, or Foindu-Jokibu-Pujehun photographers. 
First publication of Web site: 15 Aug. 2005.  

Public Web address: http://www.SLPP.org.  

Questions, suggestions, comments, & requests for site links: Contact Richard Jewell


 

 

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