A SYMBOL OF HOPE

In Sierra Leone it is custom for all the students to wear uniforms and matching shoes. I believe it is a practice they inherited from the British who colonized Sierra Leone for many years and ultimately initiated their formal education system. While I understood the reasons for CAUSE Kids to provide these items to the students, it wasn’t until I was in a classroom that I understood their significance. Surrounded by grade one students, who like grade one students everywhere can barely contain their energy, we began to call out names to come receive the new uniforms and shoes. Mr. Bangura had carefully measured all the students and local tailors had sewn the small blue and white outfits to fit each individual child. While both the uniforms and shoes were bright and very cute, it was the students who walked carefully to the front of the room that really touched me. As soon as both items were checked to fit, the small grade one kids would clutch them closely to their chest, hurry back to their seat and show their friends. And the next day as the kids wore their new gear to school, their pride was obvious and beaming – especially with the girls. New uniforms and shoes alone will not make a difference for these children and their country, but they are undoubtedly a symbol of the hope and confidence that education provides.



Photos: A few of our future leaders, proud of their new uniforms and ready to take on the world

ALL THE CASAVA YOU COULD EAT

As I stood in the middle of one of our school gardens, surrounded by cassava plants that came up past my shoulders and the beautiful hills of Sierra Leone, I felt an immense optimism for this fertile country. Two months before I came to Africa, the “Global Food Crisis” had hit and the foods and grains that are typically treated merely as a commodity in the West were decreasing in supply and increasing in price: Simple economics in a well-developed market economy. While people in Canada had to reach deeper into their pockets at the supermarket, higher prices of grains in Sierra Leone forced families to buy even less – often resulting in not just smaller meals, but fewer of them.

In a country with a vast and untapped agricultural potential, it is upsetting to know that it imports more food than it exports and that its people are malnourished and dependent on a market that they are rarely a part of. A systemic mix of poor infrastructure, lack of technology, politics and other factors that come with poverty have stunted the growth of agriculture in Sierra Leone and has kept its people from obtaining the “food sovereignty” they deserve. The potential is here, however, and our school gardens are a small and important step in the right direction. Our students are learning about agriculture and science and also get to eat what they grow when the crops are harvested. And as CAUSE Kids grows, so will the number of well-educated future farmers who will both feed and free their country. As always, a big thank you to all our supporters who are helping to nourish young minds, bodies and spirits!

Photos: A student waters some of the vegetables in the school garden and one of the mothers dishing out a big bowl of casava and sauce for lunch at the school.