The Silent Abuse of Girls in Sierra Leone

'Who Won the World, Girls'

“It’s not what you call me, but what I answer to.” ~African proverb 

Whenever I think about writing a new blog I will usually have an idea of what form and focus it will take. I'll write down a few ideas on my notepad then stare at my screen for a good half an hour before anything happens. I am sure you have already guessed that this piece will focus on women in Sierra Leone.

Initially I thought of finding some relevant statistics to start it off, but my internet is bandwidth-challenged and loading a big website like the WHO for example can take up to 5 to 10 minutes. So I have decided that instead of throwing statistics at you, I will do what most of my other blogs end up doing; telling you a few wee stories.

All names have been changed to protect the identity of the individual.

The women and girls I met in Sierra Leone were beautiful, passionate, strong, and fierce (when they needed to be and they certainly needed to be). Abuse was common and in many cases accepted as part of life, by the abuser, victim, and society. I have described the system of abuse to many people as follows; men abuse women, men and women abuse children, men, womenand children abuse animals. However, I would like to clarify that this is not the case for all Sierra Leoneans, this is a model of abuse I witnessed when abuse did occur. I became very good friends with a young woman around my age, she was attending the local university in Makeni city and was one of the most beautiful girls you have ever seen. We will call her Sally.

Abusive Relationships

One day Sally was helping me cook (I really struggled to cook on the stove and any help was appreciated by me and the people risking their taste buds); we got talking about relationships and she told me about her ex-boyfriend and that she had split up with him. When I asked why she told me that he beat her, very badly, that her face was swollen up and she had a busted lip. Firstly, I was shocked that she had been beaten so badly and secondly, I was shocked and impressed that she was the one to end it.

As much as I admire Sierra Leonean women, they are not the most assertive of females; in my IT and Career classes, they would be the smallest in number and would remain silent the whole time. This was not just a choice on their part but was sometimes reinforced by a few of the male students in the class. If I directed a question at one of the girls a man would answer for her or if I asked her to do something on the PC, a male student would take the mouse off her and do it. This was infuriating to say the least and I had little tolerance for it.

This is one of the reasons why I was so shocked at Sally's assertiveness, especially when she told me that she still had feelings for him; at that point my heart broke for her. Sally not only had to wrestle with her own conflicting feelings she also had to deal with pressure from her friends and her ex's family to get back together with him. Her friend Sarah told her that some women think that if their partner does not beat them then they don't truly love them, Sally countered this by saying that "you don't hurt someone you love".

I couldn't have agreed more with her. 

Female Genital Mutilation

Unfortunately, abuse of women and young girls does not begin or end there. You may have noticed the issue of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been talked about a lot in the media recently.

I spoke to a few local women about FGM and they told me that it is very common, transcending tribe, religion, and region, and that for many women it is seen as a right of passage.

Sally watched Ellen and I get up off our mattresses and winced; we laughed and asked why she did that? She said that because of FGM, she would find it painful to get up they way we did. She proceeded to show us how she tucks her legs underneath her and gently rises off the mattress, we asked her if she agreed with FGM, she said no and regrets having it done. She made it sound like it was her choice, but something told me that she didn't have much choice in the matter. Despite it being a very secretive part of Sierra Leonean culture, they have festivals dedicated to it every year.

FGM is a brutal practice and is often carried out in unsanitary conditions and with blunt and unclean instruments, which can cause illness and death. 

Sexual Abuse in Schools

Physical abuse is not the only threat that many Sierra Leonean girls must face; sexual abuse is common and often an accepted fact of life for girls who reach puberty. We spent the summer months in Sierra Leone, therefore we worked mainly in summer schools, which were run by a lot of very young male teachers, some of whom were younger than me (I am 23).

Not only did I question their teaching ability, I also also questioned their motives with a lot of the girls. Ellen came bursting into our room one day after her school shift, she was shaking and on the verge of tears, when I asked her what was wrong she said that the teachers at her school should not be there. To be fair there were a lot more expletives used than that, but it would seriously disrupt the flow of this blog.

After a few cigarettes. she told me that she overheard all of the male teachers talking about how they loved summer school because the girls would were tight clothes, and as they said this they would make lewd gestures and point out particular girls. I didn't know what to say; you can't say everything will be alright because it won't – some of those teachers may be involved in the systematic abuse of their students. Ellen said that they spoke so openly about it that it was obviously an accepted thing to do, even when you were in a position of responsibility.

I thought to myself, "These girls don't have a chance, how can this be fair?". 

This blog has been particularly bleak and has focused on a dark and dangerous part of Sierra Leone culture and society; however, time is a great changer. During my team's time in Makeni, we met a guy called Phillip – he was a social worker for Street Childand he told us that he was working on a case regarding a young girl who had been impregnated by her teacher; she was 15.

Phillip and I on Aberdeen beach in Freetown

The teacher refused to take responsibility and he was more than likely going to get away with it; however, Phillip was going through the courts to get this guy reprimanded and it was working. He told us that he was being threatened by the teacher's family as well as being bribed to drop the case, but that it was the right thing to do and he was not going to be swayed.

Sierra Leone's justice system leaves a lot to be desired and, more often than not, works against the victims of crimes, but it is people like Phillip who help keep the young women of Sierra Leone safe. 

Further Reading

Street Child - website - www.street-child.co.uk

World Health Organization - Female Genital Mutilation Factsheet

Exploit and Go: How the North steals from the South

A Scotsman, a Welshman and an Irishman walk into the Clubhouse in Sierra Leone...

This may sound like the beginning of a bad joke but it could not be further from the truth. The following account was made by my collegue Ellen Paton after a conversation with 3 miners in a popular European restaurant in Makeni city, Sierra Leone.

The three men were apparently on holiday "in this hellohole for two days. If you thought this was a s*&%hole you should see Tonkoli."  So I asked "bet you can't wait to go home?,"  they said "yep, exploit and go". When I said I was a volunteer their response was patronising to say the least, "aww that's nice. I mean, you have to live in this s*&%hole and pretend you are doing stuff. We are the ones giving the money back though. I spend so much at Apex! (Another name for Wusum Hotel)"   

They were two engineers and a supervisor working for London Mining. They seemed really racist. They told me that they were sinking 3 mountains in the north. They also said that the miners do not get adequate health and safety training. My friend Sheka (a national) said that in Makali, Bombali District there are frequent cholera outbreaks as miners work in gold mines where they are exposed to contaminated water, they are not provided with water purification tablets. It became obvious to me that there needs to be more transparency  in what these mining companies are doing. Everyone seems to be oblivious to the exploitation that is happening in their country. They like that there is foreign investment in the country whilst being unaware of the scale , the pollution and lack of remittances that it brings.

This account never fails to make my skin crawl. The lack of morality in this one conversation is disturbing but no longer surprises me after coming in contact with several western companies that were "investing" in Sierra Leone. We met the employees of two companies in particular, London Mining and African Minerals, in two locations in Makeni; Wusum Hotel and The Clubhouse restaurant. 

Wusum Hotel is a newly developed hotel in Sierra Leone, it has an internet cafe, swimming pool, gym and european style rooms. Manson & Knight's travel guide to Sierra Leone describes Wusum Hotel as the haunt of "miners, ministers & paramount chiefs" at night it can turn into a bit of a "hooker-fest" and the service is "less than friendly" (Manson & Knight, p.286). I can confirm this from personal experience, myself and Ellen spent several hours there during our search for reliable wifi. When the miners came out of their rooms the prostitutes would emerge, seemingly from nowhere. They would throw themselves at the often middle aged, overweight european miners who did little to deter their advances. These miners certainly do put a lot of money back into the local economy, but from my experience, not in the right way.

In 2014 there will be a West African Mining Consortium held in London, this will be attended by any self respecting mining company based in Africa, including African Minerals and London Mining. Why hold a massive consortium about the future of West African mining in London? Why not hold it in West Africa? Surely that makes more sense, considering the fact that you are mining very valuable natural resources from there and supposedly "investing" in the national economy. There are a lot of things that keep people in Africa poor, and this kind of foreign "investment" is one of them. 

I was part of a livelihoods programme in Sierra Leone and thid included career guidance lessons in schools. I saw a lot of young people benefit from these classes, however, it is my sincerest belief that career guidance is pointless unless the population is politically aware. If they cannot engage politically on a local and national level then how are they supposed to defend their rights as citizens and ultimately how their natural resources are mined and where they go? If London was rich in natural resources you can be sure that no foreign mining company would set one greedy foot near the capital!

Most of us international volunteers were educated to university level, we were all politically aware and had a critical mindset. We could not have been more different from most of the young people we met out there, we questioned some of our nationals about where their taxes go and what benefit did they see from it. They said that they didn't know where their taxes went and they politely shrugged off the quetsion with a smile, they said that to question the government in any way would be seen as revolutionary and after a decade of brutal war, revolution is the last thing on anyone's mind. To be honest I really couldn't blame them for feeling this way, they are peaceful to the point of being totally passive and who am I to judge, I wasn't the one who had to survive one of the most brutal civil wars of the modern age. Sierra Leone was recently revealed to have the most corrupt government in the world, this doesn't surprise me, however exploitation from companies like London Mining, Dawnus and African Minerals does not help this situation.

When a country and it's people are being exploited by their own government and external bodies, internal change is needed. However, we cannot forget the responsibility that our own government has to help stop this kind of exploitation. When it comes to the British government I would go as far as to say that they are not only responsible but contribute to the exploitation of Sierra Leone. During our first few days there we visited the Britsih High Commission in Freetown, of course it was at the very top of the mountain in a walled, green and almost suburban area. We met two sections of the British government, the Foreign Office and DFID. After chatting to several of them over expensive food and alcohol served by two local Sierra Leoneans, we soon discovered that each department were there for different reasons. DFID was there to promote Sierra Leonean interests and the Foreign Office was there to promote British interests. There was a beautiful pool, flushing toilets and air conditioning; after coming from a place where we washed ourselves with a a bucket of water none of us felt comfortable there. It just did not feel right, eveything was so lavish, expensive and so at odds with what we had experienced in the two days that we were there.

Most of the people of Sierra Leone are very poor, uneducated and politically unaware. How can Sierra Leone develop if there are so many internal and external bodies that jump at every chance to exploit this country and it's people? I do not know the answers to many of the questions I have posed in this blog, what I do know is that choosing to remain blind to the corruption of companies like London Mining and our own government will not help. Yes it would be easier to bury your head in the sand and trust me I have wanted to do it many times upon returning home, but one day it won't be a distant African country being exploited it will be our own.

The photographs below show a career forum that we organised in one of the local schools and all of us at the Britsih High Commission. Photos courtsey of the fabulous Kristine Vaivode :) 

  

With Great Change Comes Great Responsibility

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when you know in your heart you begin  to understand there is no going back?" Frodo Baggins, The Return of The King

You know things will be different when you return home, you know you will be different and everything that made up your life (including the ones you love) before you left will not be the same. What you don't realise is that knowing and understanding are two different things.  Six people will eat an apple but each one of those people will have a different experience and thus a different reaction to eating that apple. In this blog will tell you about my reaction and about how I am coming to understand the different life I now find my self inhabiting. I wish to attribute this change not just to Sierra Leone and it's people but to the team of people that I worked, lived, laughed and cried with. This one is for you Makeni ti ti's!

The obvious differences between Sierra Leone and the UK are things like the NHS, milk, a wider range of fruit and vegetables, clean running water, hot water, Televisions in every home, foot paths and roads to name a few. These are luxuries which we all survived without with relative ease, but it did not stop me crying during my first hot shower in 3 months and staring stupidly at a tap of clean running water. I couldn't stop thinking about how easy everything was and how none of it was "normal", that the majority of the world's population does not live like this. However, this is not your fault or mine, no one can help where they are born but I began to recognise the responsibility we had to help those less well off than we are. Uncle Ben had it right when he said that "with great power comes great resposibiliy" (Spider-Man for those who do not know); wealth is power, health is power, knowledge is power and the majority of the people I met in Sierra Leone have none of these things. I knew about the disparity between the northern and southern hemisphere but it was only upon returning home that I truely began to underrstand what that meant for me and for the rest of the developing world.

The night was fresh but warm, there was not a cloud in the sky and I was happy. I could see the moon and wondered if my Mum could see it too, I quickly rang her and she said she could. "We are looking at the same moon even though we are so far away", I could almost hear her smile , "well there is only one moon Denise". I had to laugh, typical for my Mum to kill the romance! I talked to her that night about how I felt like I had changed but I wasn't sure how, that the ground beneath my feet seemed to have shifted and that I had shed a very old skin. I don't believe that you can see and feel things differently unless you have changed in some way as a person and I would like to attribute that personal changed to my team mates both international and national. My team leader, Eric, taught me about maintaining professionalism even when things were very tough and your character was being criticised. I had some amazing conversations with him over some double punch and kill drivers, he encouraged me come back to Africa and volunteer again. He also gave me some amazing advice which went along the lines of, "people can criticise (for good or bad reasons) but never forget that only you know who you are as a person, so don't let anyone make you feel rubbish about yourself."

My roommate Ellen was my rock for the whole placement, we washed our hair in a rain storm together long before we were friends or even knew we were in the same team, I guess it was meant to be. I have never known anyone who connects with people in the deep and meaningful way that Ellen does, she sees people when others don't. There were many nights that I listened to her tell me stories of all the people she met, most were not friends or relatives but just ordinary people who came into her life sometimes for just a few hours. However, in the short time that she met them she was able to light them up and give them a voice through her memory of them. Her patience and understanding of the local people was incredible and I spent a large amount of my placement wishing I could interact with people the way she did and I am sure still does.   

Kristine was my team mate along with Makieu (our national volunteer), personally I think we were the best team but I am sure my other Makeni team mates would disagree! These two people taught me the true meaning of hard work, especially when the odds were against us. Makieu lived the furthest away and whenever we needed him he was there to help us teach, translate, guide and give us any support we needed. All of the Makeni national volunteers poured their heart and soul into looking after us and making sure our placement was as amazing as it was. Kristine was amazing, she was never angry or down and worked so incredibly hard, I don't think the team could have acheived what we did without her creativity, passion and hard work. Most of the photographs you can see on my FaceBook page were hers and all the art work for our events were imagined and designed by her. She is one of the team members that I miss the most and despite being 3 years younger than me I believe she also taught me the most about hard work and perseverance in the face of hardship.

How can you pick up the thread of an old life when you know things are no longer the same? If I am honest I don't want to return to my old life, my old mind or my old body. The difference between knowing things will change and understanding that change is very simple, when you understand the change that has happened you know that that change has come from within yourself. What most people find hard when returning home is the fact that nothing has changed, the world you left behind still stands in all its abnormal glory. 

I knew that no one else had the same experiences as me and I am very understanding of that, but it doesn't make turning on a tap, boiling a kettle or nipping to the shop any easier. In many respects life in Sierra Leone is so much more black and white, you don't have a T.V and constant advertising telling you what you should be, what you should do, who you should love etc. You just be what you can with the lot you have been given, as sad as that sounds it is true for the majority of Sierra Leoneans. I talked earlier about the responsibility that comes with power, in my case I would like to alter that slightly and say, with change comes great resposibility. I have changed, I am no wealthier, smarter, or stronger but I have the power of experience and I believe any experience you have whether positive or negative is still an experience and I now have the responsibility to do something with that experience .

If you are not interested in giving money, give your time or your knowledge, read about a particular issue and engage other people about it. You do not need money to have a responsibility to help others, think about it.

*The photos below are of the Makeni team, Kristine's art work for our Community Action Day and Alice and I holding a banner promoting a cleaner environment.

The Hospital Diaries: Part 1

The following story is a true account of my experience in the Holy Spirit Hospital in Makeni city, Sierra Leone. I have tried my best to recount these events as accurately as possible . My hope is that this story will help to open your eyes to the realities of living in a developing country. However, this is not an attempt to make you feel guilty or to upset you, this experience changed the way I viewed the West forever and it is one that wish to share with you. Take it as you will.

Wednesday 14th August, 2013 - Approximately 10pm

I have passed out several times, my head is pounding and all I want to do is sleep. When I am awake my team leader, Eric looks worried sick while my room mate Ellen and my team mate Bella cradle me. Jebbeh, our field officer has arrived and brings an air of calm to a somewhat irrate atmosphere, after I beg people to leave my room Bella and Ellen get me out of my cow print onesie and into something that is a little less weird looking. When I applied for this placement I never imagined that my team mates would have to undress me. I am bundled into a small 4x4 and all I can think about is how the upholstery smells like wet cat. I am vaguely aware that Jebbeh's sister Esther is in the back of the car with me.

The hospital is dead, I can't believe that there is no one here. It is rainy season, a time when practically everyone is sick and the place is empty! Then my brain kicks in and reminds me that this is Sierra Leone and emergency care does not exist here, at least not in a form that we would recognise in the West. After I faceplant a random hospital trolley for several minuets someone hauls me into a wheel chair and escorts me through to the private wing. This area is seperated from the rest of the hospital by a guard and iron bars. The room is tidy, clean-ish and basic, there are two hospital beds and I notice that only one is made up for a patient. I climb onto the bed and quickly assume the foetel position, a beautiful nurse with her lip pierced enters the room and starts to prepare an IV. I begin to sob quietly, the last few days of travelling and sickness has finally caught up with me and if I am honest I do not trust the nurses. Lip-pierced nurse tells me to stop crying with the bedside manner of a honey badger, when I don't stop she asks me why I am crying, I lie and say  it is because I don't like needles. A crying girl is the last thing she wanted and to be honest I don't blame her.

Jebbeh makes sure I am settled in and then leaves Esther with me for the night. Jebbeh is tall with beautiful features and dreadlocks, while Esther is small with huge brown eyes and beautifully plaited hair. Once I am connected to a drip that looks like piss Esther helps me into bed and adjusts my mosquito net around my bed. As I settle in for the night I hear what sounds like a young boy crying and moaning in the next room. I am annoyed because I am desperately tired and really want to sleep, when I ask Esther what the boy is saying she tells me that he keeps asking for water. The boy cries for what seems like hours and then all of a sudden he is silent, a few minutes later his parents begin to scream and howl, the sound pierces my soul and I know I will never forget it. The mother becomes so hysterical that she is slapped across the face, I don't how long they cry for, all I know is that the boy has died.

Thursday 15th August, 2013 - Morning

I wake to find lip-pierced nurse removing the drip that looks like piss and attaching a clear bottle of fluid. I ask her what it does and she says it will make me better. "Yes, I get that" I think but I hold my tongue, "aye, but what does it actually do?", she says it is for diarrhoea. I assum it is rehydration treatment. Once lip-pierced nurse has left I read the bottle, "Sodium Chloride and Glucose", I can't help but feel proud of myself for remembering some of my GCSE chemistry. Esther insists that I wash my feet and change my clothes, despite my protests she ushers me into the private bathroom which smells of crap and proceeds to wash my feet with her bare hands. I have never been treated so well  by someone who is not a blood relative. As she helps me change my top a random man peers through the open door and says hello. I greet him back, mentally noting that I am sitting in my trackies and bra. 

Esther leaves and I decide to read Fifty Shades of Grey on my phone. A more senior nurse comes in and hands me a cup of pills, "What are they for?" I ask her, she looks really confused for a few moments then replies "They will help you get better." Okay the language barrier has raised it's ugly head again, "What do they do?", every word a staccato. The doctor prescribed them she replies, Christ, I mentally face palm. Eventually she tells me that they are anti-malarials, painkillers and vitamins, malaria is so common in Sierra Leone that if you have a fever and headache they treat you for malaria even if they haven't tested for it. 

I reach a particularly inappropriate part of Fifty Shades when a young man comes in to take my blood and urine sample. He uses plastic tubing to try and raise a vein, I remember that every doctor in the UK has complimented me on the quality of my veins and has never needed to use tubing to raise a one! Compared to a local I am practically see through, why in God's name do they need to raise a vein! Despite my frustration I find myself giggling at my thoughts as the young man continues to smack my arm with the most confused look on his face. 

Ellen has arrived, she has long, thick brown hair and the loveliest brown eyes. I am so glad to see her. She tells me that the rest of the team will try and see me later. After she leaves I slip into a heavy sleep about my team fighting off a grizzly bear with flip flops. When I wake Kristine and Alice are here, Krsitine is a tall Latvian with the biggest smile and Alice has long blond hair and the funniest laugh you will ever hear. They have brought chocolate and biscuits, it is the first thing I have eaten since yesterday. My national counterpart Sahr, arrives shortly aterwards. After and hour or so Kristine and Sahr leave to conduct home visitations for some of our students. I am relieved and happy that Alice has decided to stay with me. We talk for a long time about everything and anything, we spend most of our time laughing. 

Lip-pierced nurse attaches another drip, I ask her the usual questions and receive the usual non-answers. Alice suppresses a giggle as I look at her and  raise my eyebrows as if to say "see what I mean!?". Bella bursts through the door and shuffles across the room to me with a take away box of breaded chicken, she is an angel and has walked a long way to deliver this to me. I really am blessed with such a wonderful team of people, I can't believe they care this much about me. 

When the day draws to a close I hear people singing near by, it is hynm in Temne, I think it is a hymn for the boy who died.

Jane should be arriving soon with a bag of clean clothes, I am sweaty and stink to high heaven. The doctor was supposed to see me again today, when I enquire where he is the nurse tells me that he went home at 4.30pm. I am shocked and somewhat disgusted, is this normal for all doctors in Sierra Leone? Is there a shortage of doctors? Is this why the boy died, because there was no doctor to treat him? I decide to be a little more patient with my nurses, it is not their fault if the only doctor for this hospital buggers off at 4.30pm in his white BMW (This is not embellishment, I actually seen it) and doesn't explain to his patient why she is connected to what looks like a bag of piss.

My IV has come out and I think I am going to be sick, the nurse removes it completely, then mumbles something angrilly in Krio and leaves. An hour later lip-pierced nurse is back with an accomplice. He is in a tye dye t-shirt and is putting on plastic gloves, I immediately think he is going to inject me in the ass  and the nurse registers my fear. She tells me that he is a doctor and is here to put a new IV in. Oh, okay, so the white people get doctors who come out at stupid o'clock to put IVs in but not to treat a dyng boy? Tye dye doctor and lip-pierced nurse leave as I grapple with the unsettling thought that I am being treated better than others because I am white and am insured for £1million. worth of medical treatment. 

Part 2 will posted tomorrow...

There and Back Again: An African Tale

“No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill.” ― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

Sierra Leone, where do I start? To be honest there is no witty or interesting way to begin a story that is 3 months long. I have stared at my screen for half an hour trying to do just that and failed miserably. I do not wish to write a chronological account, because that would be immensly boring and I do not just want to recount events, I wish to shed a critical light on certain experiences that I have had. I wish to bridge the gap between my experience in Africa and you the reader, I hope to inspire, inform and challenge your thoughts and knowledge on Africa and especially Sierra Leone. Upon arriving home I was asked a lot questions but the most common question was, "What shocked you the most?", to which I would reply with a resounding sigh and a resigned laugh.

The heat was the the first shock I received, it was like a wall of water tryng to force it's way into my lungs, I was feeling pretty stupid standing in my jeans and boots as the sweat began to pour off me 10 minutes into arrival. 6 of us packed ourselves into a small 4x4 which was even hotter than outside, we all laughed it off nervously and began to sing This Is Africa . The toilets on the ferry were vile, but apparently of a lot better standard than the private ferry next to us, this was hard to believe especially when the temperature began to rise and carry the smell of the toilet around the ferry. I learned very quickly that I had a particular talent for sweating a lot, while others would be mildly damp I would look like I had just taken a shower. I thought this was my body acclimatising to the weather, apparently not; the whole time I was there I sweated like a yeti in a fur coat. My proclivity for sweating copious amounts became famous within the group and the term sweating was soon replaced with 'Denise-ing', this is of course my proudest acheivement of the whole trip.

Finding food was difficult, this was an issue/shock that I only experienced when we were in our respective placements, as food was provided for us when we met as a group. I don't know about anyone else but for me breakfast didn't exist for 2 months, I waited until 12 to eat and even then it was a peice of short bread that the women and children would be selling along the road, they were affectionaly known as Kill Drivers. I ingested a lot of sugar, partly because my body was loosing sugar and salt through sweating so much and partly because the safest and most convenient foods were sugar based. One thing that I missed was having a decent cup of tea, you couldn't just have a quick 'cuppa tae', you have to light a charcole stove which was a nightmare and even then it would take, what, 40 minutes for the water to boil. First world problems, eh? There was one food based beacon of hope and that was The Clubhouse, a bar/restaurant that funded Street Child, Sierra Leone. It sold European style food for a small fortune and had a T.V, we really couldn't want for more. I spent a lot of time there when I was feeling down or homesick, chicken nuggets, chips and Minute Maid every time. Fruit was limited to bananas and mangos, apples were expensive and scarce which meant I nearly cried when I seen a bowl of apples sitting on my kitchen table when I arrived home.

The reaction from Sierra Leoneans to white people was hard to get use to, they would call us 'Oputo' and the children would want to touch and talk to us constantly. When I was in hospital two children stared at me from the open door because they had never seen a sick white person before, their shock was evident from their sharp intake of breath and wide doe-like eyes. Some would touch my freckles and tell me to go to the hospital because I was sick, others saw us as a source of wealth (which isn't entirely inaccurate) and asked us for money and or food. In freetown a 15 year old girl asked me to adopt her, I was so shocked that I just advised her to look up international adoption laws online. The stupidity of my response still makes me cringe. While Kristine and I were sitting in the middle of Makeni city, under the clock tower a woman tried to sell her new born baby to me, I almost threw up and all I could do was walk away and try not to cry.

I have painted a fairly negative picture of Sierra Leone, which was not my intention, there are so many positives things about Sierra Leone and it's people. What shocked me was how everyone dances, even the children, I found myself dancing with them, loosing my inhibition and really falling in love with their passion and energy. Sierra Leone is 60% Muslim and 30% Christian and is one of the most religiously tolerant countries in the world! They say each other's prayers, go to each other's schools and even marry each other, they have the upmost repect for someone's faith no matter which religion they adhere to. Sierra Leonean's express their love so openly and in such a raw form that initially it can be intimidating, however, now that I am back in Ireland I miss their passion and constant out pouring of love for others. Women openly breast feed and are not self concious about their bodies, they do not care about weight and love nothing more than posing for the camera, screaming "snap me, snap me!". Most of all I miss how giving and helpful the people are, our national volunteers taught us how to hand wash our clothes, cook, and where to find food. Our neighbours always greeted us in the morning and brought our washing in if it rained, when I was in hospital my Field Officer's sister washed my feet with her bare hands as I was connected to my IV. You cannot learn selflessness from better teachers than Sierra Leoneans.

Sierra Leone shocked and scared me sometimes but it also taught me a lot of lessons on how to be a better human being, it gave me an insight into what poverty will do to people and made me question my place in the world. The following blogs will be theme based and cover experiences that had a profound impact on me and others in the group. If you decide to read and follow this series of blogs I promise that you will not be disappointed.

 

Youth Unemployment: The Ties That Bind

"Jobs and opportunity are essential for peace."  Barrack Obama, Waterfront Hall Belfast , 2013

Unemployment is a hallmark of my current generation. When living in a capitalist society, the boom and bust is expected but no less devastating when it happens. It is widely agreed that the people most affected by the current economic depress are young people between the ages of 16 -25, we are the so called "lost generation". Young people have the highest rate of unemployment of any other section of society, not just unskilled and uneducated young people but highly skilled labourers and University graduates too. In Northern Ireland 1 in 4 young people are currently unemployed and looking for work, in Sierra Leone unemployment is aproximately at 55% - 65% (1), these are not figures for youth unemployment, however, keep in mind that the oldest people in Sierra Leone are only in their 40's. This means that this figure would speak for the majority of Sierra Leone's population.

Sierra Leone and Northern Ireland may seem worlds a part but in my opinion both countries have a lot in common. Both have only emerged from civil war 10/15  years ago, both are surprisingly peaceful despite their recent violent history. Sierra Leone's economy is one of the fastests growing in Africa and despite the recession, Northern Ireland has made huge societal leaps and is currently negotiating stronger economic links with America during the G8 summit in Enniskillen. However, there is still a lot to be done in both countries and tackling the serious issue of unemployment is one of them.

Sierra Leone has a truly "Lost Generation" of young people who have been mentally and physically maimed by the brutal cival war which ravage the country and it's people. Images of child soldiers and blood diamonds come to mind. This is a generation that should have been in school, playing, learning and growing; not learning to use a rifle to kill others. These young people have not the skills nore the education to take advantage of Sierra Leone's growing economy, one of the suggested solutions for tackeling this has been to overhaul the education system. Which should promote a good work ethic, and provide educational institutions which equip students with the skills to work in the Sierra Leone's biggest industries such as farmining and mining (2). However, the issue of Sierra Leone's rate of unemployment is not a black and white issue with an easy or straight forward solution. Tackeling youth unemployment is one of the main MDG (Millenium Development Goals) for Sierra Leone and other developing countries around the world. Which is one fundamental reasons why I have been given the ooportunity to work in Sierra Leone on employability skills. Obama was correct when he mentioned the importance of having opportunity and jobs, to have peace is not just about not being at war. It means having enough food to feed your family, access to adequate health care, being provided with a decent education and ultimately through self determination having the job you want.

I had a conversation with a firend recently about the the pros and cons of Android and Apple products, at one point she suggested that there were more important things worry and/or be passionate about. Of course she was right, however, I pointed out the fact that I am free to be passionate about something that is not essential for me to live. I am free to argue and discuss this because I have never needed to think about where my next meal will come from, worry about paying for my health care, or be forced out of education at 13 because I was a female and needed to geet a job or get married. Education and prosperity have provided me with the freedom to argue about the merits of Android and Apple and for that I am grateful. Lack of education and prosperity can cause a deep and persistent sense of hopelessness which in turn breeds bitterness and extremist views among young people. The best example of this is during the Flag Protests in Belfast last year, yes there was a genuinie greivance within the Unionist community about this issue, however, young unemployed people (mainly young men) used this issue as an excuse to commit crimes that they would not have done otherwise. These young people have nothing to lose and any excuse to kick off or spit in the face of the " Establishment" is welcomed and to a certain extent I can't blame them for feeling this way.

This has been a longer blog that usual, but this is an issue close to my heart and home and very to every country and society at the minuet. Next week's blog will be my last before I go to Sierra Leone, while I am there I hope to do a video diary about my experiences and upload a video once a week to my FaceBook & Twitter page.

Thank you so much for reading and my blog and I will see you all next week!

The Power of Social Media

"Social media sparks a revelation that we, the people, have a voice, and through the democratization of content and ideas we can once again unite round common passions, inspire movements, and ignite change."
Brian Solis

Social media is a huge force in our world today, it can be good or bad depending on how it is used. For the first time ever we as humans have the ability to communicate thoughts, ideas and news instantly with the rest of our species, this is most evident when we think of the videos, pictures and blogs coming out of Syria during this time of conflict for them. Social media transfers information in it's raw form, unfiltered, unbiased and brutally honest at times. However, the communication of information is not the only thing it is used for; through the transference of information we make connections with others. These connections allow us to communicate with individuals, businesses and organisations in a way that we previously would not have been able to do.

Most of you already know, but for those that don't I had to raise a minimum of £800 before I travel to Sierra Leone. As soon as I found out that I was going to Sierra Leone I set up a FaceBook page called "Denise Goes to Sierra Leone" which people could like and share with others. This was subsequently linked with a new Twitter account, both of which I used to promote my Just Giving page. If I posted something to my FaceBook page this would appear on my Twitter page, I would then retweet this post onto my personal Twitter. I have found that consistency and engagement are key to using social media successfully. I identified my goal which was to raise my target of £800, I then set out a plan of action which was to maintain activity on the page and to engage with as many people as possible on FaceBook and Twitter. For example whenever my Just Giving page was donated to I would thank the person personally on FaceBook and Twitter and provide a brief update on my progress and how much more I needed for my target.

Therefore, the 3 most important steps to remember are below:

1. Idenify your goal
2. Set up a plan of action (Engagement and consistency)
3. Follow through with your plan of action

Upon reaching my target I had to change my goal. A huge part of the ICS programme is Action at Home, which means working withing your community promoting the message of Restless Development and sharing the experiences you have had (In a nut shell of course). As soon as you reach your fundraising target start laying the foundations for your Action at Home. Before I reached my target I promoted my Just Giving page, now I promote this blog, I do this because social media is one of my strengths and I want to build up a decent readership in order to share my experience with as many people as possible. A blog is a great tool for any glocal citizen! Not only has my goal changed but so has my plan of action, I try to limit my posts to two a day. One post will be a daily fact about Sierra Leone, the other will be an update on my ICS journey. My aim is to keep people interested but not overload them with too much information either, if you post too much or too little people will loose interest and may even withdraw their support altogether.

At this stage you should be very active on Twitter, your FaceBook posts will still be posted to your Twitter but you should also be engaging with organisations, businesses, media and individuals on Twitter. Follow as many people as possible, interact with as many people as possible and most importantly thank everyone who retweets, favourites or follows you.  Hashtags are also very important for connecting with others, whenever I post something to Twitter 99% of the time I will hashtag Sierra Leone and Restless Development so whenever anyone searched for either of these key words my tweets will come up. I have found many like minded people this way and it is not something to underestimated. On the other hand keep your hashtags to a minimum, do not tweet like this - #Hi #My #Name #Is #Denise - otherwise people will probably want to "kill you in the face" as my friend would say!

The most important thing to do when conducting a campaign using social media is to be yourself. Having access to real people and real personalisties is what attracts organisations and individuals to social media. I am in no way an expert in social media marketing but thought my experiences may be of some help to others.

If you need any help with using social media as a marketing tool I would be more than happy to share what I know and point you in the right direction when I don't know something.

Thank you for reading and my blog and I will see you in a weeks time!

New Boglette: Sierra Leonean Life Expectancy

Denise Donnelly (@Denise_SL2013) tweeted at 10:10 AM on Sun, Jun 02, 2013: #DailyFact #SierraLeone - Life expectancy in Sierra Leone is 40 years of age on average. When I go out there I... http://t.co/ZEJQ7FeKgn (https://twitter.com/Denise_SL2013/status/341119633396490240) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download

The Story of Logistical Nightmares, New Friends and Honey Badgers!

" I look like a Honey Badger..."  Claire Doherty

Last Friday was my final day working at Regenersis and it was a day of mixed emotions. I was excited that I was finally breaking away from my old life and taking the first tentative steps into the new one, however, it was a sad day. I made a lot of friends there and learned some really important lessons and skills, not just from the customers but from my fellow staff members as well. I did not have much time to think as I made my way to Birmingham (my mother's birth place) for a training weekend with Restless Development.

It was a fantastic weekend which was expertly run by the lovely Rachael and the awesome Frank (See picture 1), their energy was infectious and really set the tone for the rest of the weekend. I have to commend them for their work because it takes a lot of energy to do what they do and still keep smiling, listening and laughing. While I was there I was staying with 2 other Sierra Leonean volunteers, Claire and Laura, we gelled immediately and spent most of the weekend talking about Honey Badgers and how we wake up most mornings looking and feeling like them! (See picture 2)  Meeting new people is always scary and you never really know if you will mix well, however, from my experience when you are afraid you judge people before you know them. It is natural to judge people when you first meet them based on your previous experiences, however, what I have learned is that people can surprise you. I think that was a lesson that we all learned during the weekend and will stand us in good sted for when we find ourselves in a different country, surrounded by a different culture and society.

On a more practical note, we found out that we will be teaching employability skills to the young people in Sierra Leone! I am so excited about this, it really plays to my strengths and skill set. We will be working in schools and youth centres, running employability workshops and support with CV writing as well as career fairs. We will be there for 11 weeks and be staying two to a room, with a western toilet and probably an outside shower. We will have a further 10 days of in country training when we get there and then be split off into 3 groups between Mikeni, Freetown and Bo. We will be carrying on the work of previous volunteers, helping to make this whole project sustainable and transferable through the local community and hopefully the following generations. For me that is what development means, it is sustainable, transferable and goal orientated. Most importantly it is not dictated by some leader in a far off "developed" western country. You can build as many schools as you like but unless you have people to fill them there really isn't much point.

However, I won't be going anywhere without being fully vaccinated! A word of advice to anyone doing something similar, get your vaccinations sorted ASAP because some need to be administered over a month and there will always be that one vaccine that is a pain in the backside to organise. For me that has been the Rabies vaccine, it has been the bane of my life for the last 3 days. Luckily I got it organised just in time and by the skin of my teeth, do not let that be the case for you as you  may not be so lucky.

I have a lot more that I would love to talk about but I like to keep these blogs as short and sweet as possible. To make up for this I have numbered some of the important things to keep in mind if you get choosen to be an ICS volunteer. If you want any more information on number 2 and how I set mine up get in touch and I will more than happy to help.

1. Sort out vaccines before anything else
2. Set up a social media web ASAP
3. Keep in regular contact with your organiser, do not always wait for them to contact you
4. Read up on your country - especially about the customs and societal expectations
5. Keep in regular contact with other volunteers, share ideas, resources and information

Have a good weekend everyone and my blog and I will see you in a weeks time!