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)

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.

A Funny Old Week…..

I arrived back in Freetown with my niece a week ago today after a short break in the UK, it’s been a bit of a strange week……some good, some not so good……

The journey was mostly really good – I usually prefer to travel alone, but this time I travelled with Carla (my niece). We had over 5 hours to wait for our connecting flight in Casablanca, as it was Carla’s birthday we shared cakes and coffee while I sang happy birthday……repeatedly. I like Casablanca airport, it’s cheaper than most and the cakes are lovely! Carla kindly let me sit next to the window for both flights, we had a nice young man alongside us for the first flight who joined in with us when we said grace before eating our meal. The lady next to Carla on the second flight wasn’t quite so nice and dumped her bags and her smelly feet under the seat in front of Carla, in Carla’s space – but Carla managed to hold her tongue…I’m not sure I could have been so gracious.

Part of my morning routine is feeding the chickens, we have: Marjory, Deirdre, Mabel, Ethel, Gladys, Eeny, Meenie, Miney, Mo, Bernard, Snap, Crackle, Pop, Bang, Sprout, Spud and Augustus. Augustus is the biggest cockerel I have ever seen and he doesn’t like me, he really doesn’t like me. He tries to intimidate me, when I’m facing him he’s not so bad, but as soon as I turn my back he attacks me. I’m not proud to admit that he scares me!

I have a bit of a problem with my eyes, my eyelids and undereyes are really itchy and a bit scaly from where I keep rubbing them – the eyes themselves are ok, but the surrounding skin is red and swollen and not very pretty. My favourite doctor in the world, Dr Koroma, has prescribed me some tablets that I have to take three times a day so hopefully whatever it is will clear up soon, I had the same thing in September, but it cleared up on it’s own accord that time after a couple of weeks.

The weather is odd for November. I’ve always found November and March to be the hottest months, so I was bracing myself for some serious heat, but it’s much cooler this year. We have had a lot of storms, thunder, lightning, rain, wind – the whole shebang – fortunately mostly at nights so it’s not affected work.

I was saddened to find out that some of our sponsored boys played truant to go to the beach, putting their sponsorship in jeopardy – I’m sure their sponsors aren’t going to be impressed to hear about it. For two of the students it’s their last year in school and they are working towards their end of school exams – they need all the time in school they can get and any missed schooling will affect their chance of passing the exams. I’m so sad to learn that for these few boys their education isn’t as important to them as I thought it was.

We’ve enjoyed catching up with ‘our kids’ and finding out what they are all up to. It was lovely to see Baby Freecall looking so healthy and happy. We’ve been able to help them buy a mattress for Aunty and Freecall. Aunty wants to start a small business selling various items from a portable box so she doesn’t have to keep asking us for money and can become self sufficient. The startup cost will be around £75 – if anyone is interested in helping let me know!!

At the moment we are preparing for our team of volunteers who arrive on Sunday to help with our mission – exciting!!

New Website

It's been an exciting week for Transform Salone - after a great Trustee Meeting making plans for future projects our official website was launched.

You can check it out here: www.transformsalone.org

Vehicle News–Urgent Request

It’s become apparent in the last few weeks that I urgently need to sort out my transport situation in Sierra Leone. I have an old RAV 4 at the moment, but it is costing so much to keep it on the road that it’s time for it to go. I’ve had it patched up and it’s running at the moment, so I’m hoping to find a buyer for it soon…..which leaves Transform Salone in urgent need of a new vehicle.

Crime is on the rise in the city recently and for our safety and peace of mind we have to have a reliable vehicle.

I’ve been looking around for a while and have found a car that I think is the right one for Transform Salone – it’s a Toyota 4 Runner in good condition with reasonably low mileage, just imported from the USA.

I’m going to put in all the money from the sale of my car and I’ve had some donations from very kind friends towards the purchase of a new vehicle, but we are still $5,000 short of the agreed price. Because we are so desperate for a vehicle, I have gone ahead and paid a deposit on the car with the faith that the rest of the funds will come – if we can’t raise the $5,000 by 1st November we’ll lose both our deposit and the new car.

I’d like to appeal to all friends and supporters to consider if you are able to help us with funds towards the car – any amount would be so much appreciated.

There are many ways to make a donation, the easiest being directly into the Transform Salone bank account:

Bank: Barclays, Name: Transform Salone, Account No: 43452867, Sort Code: 20-57-44

or by sending a cheque made payable to Transform Salone to:

Transform Salone, 61 Admirals House, Gisors Road, Southsea, Hampshire, PO4 8GY.

For alternative ways of making a donation email me on alison@transformsalone.org

We very much appreciate your prayers and ask that you continue to pray for us and the work we are doing in Sierra Leone.

The End Of Ebola?

A few days ago Sierra Leone passed 42 days with no new confirmed cases, meaning that person to person transmission is no longer considered a threat.......for now.

 

I saw some celebrations on the news, but in my area celebrations were pretty muted and understated.....most people I know have taken it as a time of prayer and reflection, remembering those they lost and praying for those who survived.

 

The AHS Hospital at Waterloo, which was first closed and quarantined in August 2014 then later commissioned as an Ebola Holding and Treatment Centre, reopened as a general hospital this week. The doctor and staff are glad to be getting back to normal after living and working under restrictions for so long.

I went to the reopening and as well as being a day of celebration it was a day of reflection, remembrance and prayer. It was an honour to be mentioned as one of the organisations that has helped them through the Ebola crisis and the hospital pass on their thanks for the help that Transform Salone and our supporters have given them since the start of the crisis.

The doctor was so eager to get back to work that he was seeing patients as soon as the tour of the hospital at the end of the reopening programme was over!

 

It's a great testament to the doctor, his staff and the people that came to help that while the hospital was operating as an Ebola centre no staff were infected with the virus.

 

People are very aware that there are still Ebola patients being treated in neighbouring Guinea and that it's a real possibility that we could see further cases.

Wisely people are being advised to continue with precautions such as avoiding unnecessary touching and hand washing.

 

I think people are afraid to get too excited in case it all starts up again - they don't want to celebrate prematurely.......I think most people accept that there's a good chance there will be more cases here and there, but at least the country can start to recover now.

 

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office have updated their travel advice and are no longer advising against all but essential travel to Sierra Leone.......so we are ready to start welcoming volunteers to come and help us with our community work and the sponsorship scheme. If you'd like to come and help out please get in touch!!

More About Marwan

Marwen, looking a bit fedup at the hospital

It's been a very frustrating week for us and for Marwan.


Lamin, who is looking after Marwan for us, has taken him to the hospital day after day after day. It took about 4 days  to receive the results of his scan (pictured below). He's been diagnosed with Rhabdomyosarcoma, a type of cancer, and needs to have the eye removed.....that's where we've come to a bit of a standstill. Since receiving the diagnosis Lamin has taken Marwan back to the hospital an additional 4 times in the hope of getting Marwan the treatment he needs and each time he's been told to come back the next day. Every day the eye is getting worse.

 

We've started looking into the possibility of getting treatment for Marwan outside of Sierra Leone. Lamin is having a meeting with the original doctor who referred him to find out if he has any contacts outside of Sierra Leone who might be able to help. We have no idea yet if this will be possible, but we have to try to do something.

 

I feel so useless, as if we are just waiting for his eye to get worse and worse until it's too late to do anything.

 

If you are in Sierra Leone and know any organisations or contacts who might be able to help please let me know.

 

If you are able to help financially towards Marwan's treatment and care please let me know.

 

If you can pray for him please do.
 

Marwan's Scan Results

Update on Marwen and his Poorly Eye

We took Marwan to the hospital as arranged and the doctor suspects it is cancer - he was sent for some scans and we are waiting for the doctor to review the scans and let us know what the next step is. During the few days waiting for the appointment the eye had got worse. He's been given some medication to make him a bit more comfortable.

 

He's such a sweet little boy - he's very quiet and hardly speaks, probably because he's in constant pain and discomfort with his eye.

 

We've had to take him back and forth to the hospital everyday this week, seeing the doctor, twice for scans and twice in the hope of getting the results, which are still not ready.......he's been so well behaved, hardly complaining except for when the pain gets too much.

 

He had chicken and chips for a treat and polished off the lot! There's nothing wrong with his appetite!

 

 

We appreciate all the prayers and positive thoughts being sent his way, please keep them coming. Also, a huge thank you to those who have sent donations towards his treatment.

 

Donations towards Marwan's treatment and care can be made either direct to the Transform Salone bank account or via our online giving pages here: Transform Salone's MyDonate Page or here: Transform Salone's give.net Page

*please note, Transform Salone is not yet registered to collect gift aid, but will be able to retrospectively collect the gift aid on any qualifying donations that we receive once the registration process is complete.

How It All Started

When I first started coming to Sierra Leone I helped a few of the kids by paying for their school fees, buying them bags and getting uniforms made for them......then a few more kids came along......and then more. It got to the point where I was helping with the schooling of 11 children and the number seemed sure to grow. I realised I needed help and had the idea of a sponsorship scheme.

 

The one thing I got asked for more than anything else was to help children with their schooling......and many of the volunteers who came on two week mission trips with the charity I was with at the time (Mission Direct) wanted to help the children they met - so, with the support of my Regional Director at Mission Direct, I started an education sponsorship scheme. It grew and grew and took more and more of my time until I decided it was time to leave Mission Direct to focus on the sponsorship scheme.........that's when Transform Salone was born. Since setting up Transform Salone we have expanded the sponsorship scheme to include vocational training for young adults and school leavers.

The first four boys that I started helping are all still in the scheme, three of them are now in senior school. The other boy dropped out of the scheme for a couple of years due to family problems, but he restarted in primary school earlier this year.

We now have over 70 students who are fully sponsored for their basic education or vocational training. If it hadn't been for the boys (I should really say young men) in the photos below I doubt any of it would have happened.

 

Here are the first four boys I started helping all those years ago:

 

And here they are now!

 

These four boys are fortunate to be sponsored for their education, but I know many, many other children and young adults who desperately need assistance to allow them to continue in school or progress onto vocational training. If you would be interested in sponsoring the education of a child or young adult please get in touch by following this email link and I'll send you some more details about the scheme.

Facebook Page for Transform Salone

Now that Transform Salone is a registered charity we can start fundraising in earnest and letting more people know about the work we are doing.

We've setup a Facebook page - follow the link below and give us a 'like'!!

Link to Transform Salone Facebook Page

TRANSFORM SALONE

We have cause for celebration........

 

Last year I left Mission Direct to concentrate on the educational sponsorship scheme and my community work in Sierra Leone.

Myself and three friends who also have love for Sierra Leone setup TRANSFORM SALONE, a new organisation to help people out of poverty through education.

 

I'm absolutely delighted that this week TRANSFORM SALONE has been granted charitable status by the Charity Commission - we are now a registered UK charity!!!