Fire Update

Update on the family who lost their toddler and their home in a house fire.....
Thanks to generous donations from friends and supporters enough funds have been raised to pay a year's rent on a new home for the family and to buy some essentials.

The family are living in their new home and our sponsored girl is back at school.

They aren't ok, they are still trying to comprehend the loss of their little boy. When spending time with them their grief and dispair can be felt. It's so hard to find the right words. Words of comfort seem empty in the face of their loss.

Our little sponsored girl is too young to understand what's happened, but she knows that her mummy and daddy aren't ok.

The family have have asked us to pass on their gratitude for the donations people have kindly sent to help them through this awful time.

Please hold this precious family in your prayers.

Donations to help the family can be made at our BT MyDonate page: https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/transformsalone

Supplies!!

Three days shopping and one whole day preparing the school bags and supplies for our sponsored students!!! 

Pictured are just some of the bags and supplies.

Thank You!

Thank you so much to everyone who has kindly donated funds to help the family recently affected by a house fire.

The donations are being used to pay a year's rent on a new home for them and to replace some of their lost belongings.

It's such an awful time for the family but having this help is a huge weight off their shoulders and they appreciate it so much.

We are still accepting donations for the family at our BT Mydonate page: https://mydonate.bt.com/charities/transformsalone

Fire

There has been a fire at the house of one of our sponsored girls. The father was at work, the mother was taking our student to school and from what I’ve heard the neighbours were watching her three year old brother on the veranda of the house. When people noticed the smoke and started shouting the three year old got scared and ran into the house – he sadly perished in the fire. It’s devastating for them. Just the day before the girl and her Mum visited me so I could see her in her new school uniform – she was so pleased with herself and her Mum was so proud of her, I can’t bear to think of how they are suffering now.

The family have lost all their material possession as well as their precious son.

We would like to practically support the family by helping them to find somewhere to stay and to replace some of their belongings – we are appealing for donations to help them.

If you feel you can help donations can be made via our BT MyDonate page or directly to our bank account. For more information please contact us via our Facebook page.

(photos posted with permission of the family)

Unconscious Woman

Something unsettling happened yesterday.......

I had meetings setup all day with students and their guardians. I was just getting started on the first meeting when Junior came and told me he'd more or less stumbled across someone who had collapsed in the compound of the school where I'm working from (I borrow a classroom when it's not in use to use as an office and somewhere I can meet the students and guardians).

I went out to see if I could do anything to help, there was a young pregnant lady laying on the floor. Someone carried her into the shade. She was kind of shivering, very floppy and we couldn't wake her. Someone went off to call her husband. It seemed to be taking ages, and the lady still wasn't waking up - a few tears came from her closed eyes. We waited and waited for ages for her husband to come, and still she was unresponsive - while we were waiting someone who knew the woman arrived. Between us onlookers we decided it would be best to send her off with the women who knew her in a taxi to the hospital where she's registered for the pregnancy and for her husband to meet her there. 

It must've been at least 20 to 30 minutes since she was first spotted to getting her off to the hospital, and in that time she didn't come around at all - the general feeling was that it was something quite serious.

By coincidence one of the teachers from the school happened to be at the hospital doing her government workers registration......she knew the pregnant lady and in fact had some familial link and had let the woman stay in her house the night before - she popped in to see me on her way home to let me know the young lady was awake and talking later in the day, but they didn't know yet what the issue was.

I was left feeling pretty useless, I had no idea what to do or how best to help her.

I wish the lady (whose name I still don't know) a speedy and full recovery.

Free Education

The government in Sierra Leone is making great strides to improve education. They have announced free education from primary school through to the end of senior secondary school for students attending state schools

Education sponsorship is a large part of the work of Transform Salone so we are thrilled that many more students will now have access to education.

I'm sure our sponsors are keen to learn how this may effect their sponsorships. Most of our students will not benefit from the free education as they attend community, private or mission schools - so for us and those sponsors things will carry on as usual.

For the few students who we support in state schools we waiting to find out exactly what will be included in the free education and as we learn more we will keep our sponsors updated.

We have been informed that the free education will cover school fees, essential text books and some school supplies - but we are waiting for the schools to open later this month for that to be confirmed. We will contact any sponsors of state school attending students individually. We envisage that the students will still need the sponsorships to cover all other costs associated with their education and we look forward to continuing to support these students.

We appreciate our sponsors so much and the help they are giving the students is invaluable. Please contact us at info@transformsalone.org if you'd like more information about our sponsorship scheme or if you feel you'd like to sponsor a student in Sierra Leone.