By Sarah L Armstrong and Rev. George | Director and Program Director In-Country
Global Giving
Report for Summer 2015
A Brighter Tomorrow for Africa Foundation
When we last provided a report to this wonderful group of generous donors, we talked about how much of a toll the Ebola outbreak was taking on the people of Sierra Leone we adore.
Things have improved … there are fewer cases reported now than in a long time. And as a result – our children wereable to return to the school at which we then began again to provide them breakfast and lunch.
As you’ll recall, because of the outbreak of the disease and the declaration of a public state of emergency, the movement of people from one place to the other was thwarted. Household members in the Upper Banta and Lower Banta Chiefdoms in the Moyamba District and Bumpe Chiefdom in the Bo District (the area in which BTA works) were mandated to stay in their villages which prevented children from going to school where they were being provided their meals.
In order to address this, we changed our model and brought food to the villages so the children would not go without the nutrition they so desperately need.
This went on until mid-April. Now, as we mentioned above, they are back at school and they are now able to take their meals as they did before the Ebola outbreak and the declared state of emergency. The schools were completely disinfected and cleaned. Health talks were initiated in our schools to ensure that our children stay safe and healthy; the children have adopted extremely good hand washing habits and conversations about how to prevent the spread of the disease continue.
For this of course, we are all incredibly grateful and grateful to you for your support. Here are some sentiments expressed by the people for whom we provide in Sierra Leone:
On behalf of the entire school children and staff of COTN – SL we wish to tender our since gratitude and appreciation for all your donations to the children of Sierra Leone in particular children of the Mallory Jansen Memorial Schools.
You have stayed with believing that these children will someday transform nations. The Ebola Disease has seriously posed untold hardship to children and their families. We therefore ask for more support in ensuring that school attendance of children are maintained, drop-out rates reduced and certainly improve the cognitive and learning abilities of children.
Be encouraged to continue the good work of faith as we strive to raise children that will someday become agents of transformational change in their communities and ultimately this nation. With this we say thanks to you, your family, friends and all the well-wishers and supporters of BTA.
Also to share:
We mentioned in our last update we had identified an orphanage for children whose parents have died of Ebola. When parents die in Sierra Leone, the tradition is that the children are taken in by family and/or residents of the village. This however, is not happening when the kids are “Ebola orphans.” People appear to be afraid of them. So Sierra Leone has had to open a lot of new orphanages.
BTA therefore extended its work to provide funding for food and medical supplies to one of these orphanages, located in Kenema … an area hard hit by the epidemic.
Our intention is to continue to provide for this orphanage and we encourage you to please continue your financial support to BTA in order to help us be able to do this, and continue the feeding program.
Thank you again for everything.
By Sarah Armstrong | Director, BTA
By Sarah L Armstrong and Rev. George | Director and Program Director
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