What We Do

Sponsoring the brightest poor children to get a secondary education

We set up the charity in December 2013 after witnessing first-hand the plight of the poorest children and young people in Sierra Leone. Many children were orphaned by the civil war which ended in 2002. Others were left with a single mother who has very little opportunity to earn an income other than through small-scale farming or petty trading. In most cases poverty stopped very bright children from going to secondary school.

We make grants to pay the secondary school costs of the brightest poor children from primary schools in Mahera, Shenge, Bonthe, Kroo Bay and Foredugu. Although the government in 2018 abolished secondary school fees, other costs are beyond the means of Sierra Leone's poorest families. The Head Teachers of schools in Mahera, Shenge, Bonthe, Kroo Bay and Foredugu villages select children from very poor homes who have achieved top results (a score of 290 or more) in the final primary school exams. In June 2025 we were sponsoring 85 children. We will pay their educational costs through secondary school provided they do well in the national BECE exam at the end of the third year (a score of 19 or less - the lower the score in BECE , the better the performance). The costs we meet include uniform, shoes, school bag, solar light for evening study, the best quality textbooks, examination fees and extra lessons prior to exams. Sometimes we provide students with a small table and chair and a mattress and mosquito netto prevent malaria. We provide girls with two sets of washable sanitary pads so that they do not miss days at school each month.

Providing mobility equipment so that disabled children can go to school

We also help disabled children and young people with equipment such as mobility carts, wheelchairs and crutches so that they can attend school and have more personal freedom. Some of the youngsters are selected by voluntary organisations of disabled people such as Disability Inclusion based in Bo. Others have been found in remote villages by our volunteers, who have transported crutches, mobility carts and wheelchairs by boat to remote villages on Sherbro island and the Turtle Islands. and to villages in rural areas far from Freetown. Often in a remote village
people have never seen a mobility cart or wheelchair before. The photographs on the home page show two young people crawling in the dirt near their homes and then riding their mobility carts. The positive impact on a child's life from receiving a mobility cart or wheelchair is immediate and profound. It restores dignity and enables the child to go to school regularly.

Senneh cannot walk so we gave him a mobility cart. We also paid for a solar light for his room so that he can study after dark and mosquito netting for his windows. Senneh aged 17 is an orphan living in very poor conditions. No student can succeed if they cannot study after dark, which comes early in Sierra Leone, or if school attendance is prevented by malaria. Before we gave Senneh his solar light he would leave his home every evening and sit under a street light to study. But for about six months each year the rains make this impossible. His recent text reads:

‘I have received the money you sent. May God bless you and protect you and all your friends’.

We also regard artificial legs as mobility equipment. Amputations are common in Sierra Leone because of the lack of reconstructive surgeons and physiotherapy services. An artificial leg often enables a young person to get to school regularly. It restores self-confidence and gives greater independence. We have funded eight prosthetic legs.

We like this story:

A boy is walking along Shenge beach and spots an old man kneeling often and picking up one of the thousands of starfish that have been washed ashore. The old man gently throws them back into the ocean because the sun is out and the tide is so low that they will die if he doesn’t do this. The boy said “But old man, don’t you realise there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it! You can’t possibly save them all, you can’t even save one-tenth of them. Even if you work all day, your efforts won’t make any difference at all.”

The old man listened calmly and then bent down to pick up another starfish and threw it into the sea and said, “It made a difference to that one.”

The photograph shows Fatmata (fourth left) with her grandmother and local teachers. Fatmata was the first student we sponsored to go to secondary school. Her primary school Head Teacher, Haja Kamara, said: 'Fatmata was the most able child in my school. 5 months after she left the school I found her sitting in the village. She told me she could not go to secondary school because her grandmother could not afford to pay the fee. Fatmata has no parents. Your charity has transformed her life'. In 2022 Fatmata entered university in Freetown to study for a degree in social work. Four donors sponsor her university fees. In 2025 she is nearing the end of her university degree course.

It seems to us deeply unjust that girls and boys are prevented from fulfilling their potential to serve their communities simply because they are poor. We have been inspired by these children to set up this charity to help them. We hope you will join us in giving them the education and the chances they deserve. 

Vocational training for unemployed young people

We also witnessed in Mahera the large numbers of young people in their late teens who were jobless. Often these young people had been forced by poverty to stop going to school at the end of their primary education. Their families had no land to farm and no fishing boats or nets. We were invited by Sidiki Conteh to visit his motorbike workshop under a large tree just outside the village of Mahera. Here we found six young men being taught the basics of motorbike repair and maintenance. These are skills which are in big demand in Sierra Leone, a country where motorbikes far outnumber cars. Sidiki can train his 'apprentices' but lacked the hand tools for them to practise their skills. So, we gave him a grant with which to purchase lots of tools. With their skills in mechanics these young men have a good chance of earning a modest living. Some, like Abu Bakar, have now moved on from Sidiki’s workshop and, with a full set of hand tools provided by us, is running his own small business in another village and training two apprentices.

Two of the students who were sponsored through secondary school are now studying solar installation and electrical installation at vocational training colleges in Lunsar and Freetown. Another is learning computer programming.

Mustard Seed Foundation children’s home

In the small town of Moyamba we came across Roselyn Freeman running the Mustard Seed Foundation, a charity set up 20 years ago by her mother. Roselyn now manages a children's home for 42 disabled and disadvantaged children who have been abandoned by their families. We found the children's beds broken and lacking mattresses, which had been destroyed by urine, so we awarded a grant for their replacement, with urine-proof covers. We also agreed to provide wheelchairs and tricycles for several disabled children so that they could get to school and become more active. More recently we funded a new physiotherapy room in an old classroom and helped Roselyn to equip it. We now pay the salaris of an extra 2 care workers who support and train the 10 most disabled children. Salaries are low in Sierra Leone so this costs us only £900 each year. In this way we enable these children to fulfil their potential and to live more independent lives.

Supporting our successful school students to go to university

In June 2025 we were sponsoring 15 students in universities. All are successful ‘graduates’ from our secondary education sponsorship programme. The subjects they are studying include politics, clinical psychology, pharmacy, medicine, nursing, biological sciences and social work. We pay their university fees and sometimes contribute to accommodation costs if these are beyond the means of students’ families.

Each student is supported by one UK donor or a small group of donors. Sponsorship costs on average £600 each year. Most courses last for four years. Alie Turay (pictured below) will be our first graduate in January 2026. A very able student of politics, this will be a great moment for Alie and his family and a historic moment for our charity. Alie is also a volunteer with our charity.