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.

Getting Ready for School

My main task at the moment is getting our 80+ students ready to start the new school year in just over a week.

My spare room has been taken over to store all the supplies that we’ve bought in readiness for the students…….bags, ledgers, pens, pencils, rulers, rubbers, sharpeners, geometry sets, calculators and graph paper. With so many students it’s a huge amount of stuff.

I have a number of steps that I have to go through for each student……

First of all I collect and check their report card for the last school year to see how they did over the year, if they promoted, what their attendance and timekeeping has been like and take note of any comments from the teachers.

Next I meet with each student individually along with their guardian and we review their progress together and make a plan for the upcoming school year – after this I provide the funds for the school uniforms and shoes.

Once I’ve seen the new uniforms and shoes then we pay the school fees directly to the school. When the enrolment is complete then we give each student their school bag and supplies. After that all is left is to wait for the school to issue the text book list for the year so we can buy the essential text books for each student.

This weekend I’m having our annual parents and guardians meeting to go over the sponsorship scheme, talk about what they can expect from us and what we expect from them. I’ll go over the code of conduct and the guardians will have a chance to bring up any issues or worries they have. The parent’s meetings are usually very interactive and lively!!#

Writing it all out like this makes it seem a bit daunting, such a lot to do in such a short space of time!! I’d better get one with it!!

Freecall Update

Back in May I posted about a poorly baby called Freecall (click here to see that post).

If we are friends on Facebook you might know that the Aunty who looks after Freecall was evicted from where they were living a few weeks ago when her landlord repossessed their place and knocked it down to make way for another building. This left Aunty, her daughter, and Freecall with nowhere to go and they ended up staying temporarily in an unfinished building with a leaky rook in the height of the rainy season! All of their belongings got soaked and Aunty was scared that Freecall would get sick again in that environment. Fortunately, through the generosity of kind friends, we were able to help them rent a room to live in.

I saw Freecall and her Aunty today – she is looking good! She’s put on weight since I last saw her and is much more alert and interested in what’s going on around her (she was especially interested in trying to eat the cross I wear!!). She has a bit of a cough, but apart from that she seems fine.

She’s seems happy and contented – and I loved spending the afternoon with her.

Back to Freetown

I travelled back to Freetown at the weekend after spending a wonderful few weeks over the summer in the UK with my husband.

The journey didn’t get off to the best start when I couldn’t check in online (I was had booked through an agent I hadn’t used before so was a little nervous there might be something wrong with the booking). I got to the airport nice and early……and just as well I did as I was told at check-in that the flight was overbooked and not all booked passengers would be able to fly – luckily I was one of the first to check in. The overbooking was the reason that online check-in wasn’t available.

I sat next to a nice lady from Ghana on the first flight, which was to Casablanca, we had a good chat about anything and everything and played a word game together on my tablet. The few hours I had to wait at Casablanca airport passed quickly as I spent some time chatting to a friendly group of ladies from Senegal who were travelling for their Haj. Everything went smoothly on arrival into Freetown, my luggage arrived and my friend was there waiting for me with my ticket for the watertaxi.

Not a lot has happened since I arrived, I had arranged to look at a vehicle yesterday and spent most of the day waiting around for that………it never did arrive and I found out today that someone else has bought it, so it obviously wasn’t the one for me.

Tomorrow I’m going to the school that I work out of to see my friend, the headmistress, and some of the sponsored students will meet me there so I can catch up on how they are doing.

It’s the rainy season here now, so it’s much cooler than when I left in June. Yesterday the rains were very heavy, buy it only rained for an hour or so today.

The next few weeks are going to be very busy – I have more than 80 students to get enrolled for the new school year starting in September as well as arranging for new uniforms, shoes, bags, books, supplies…..the list goes on and on – but before I can do any of that I need to go over their school report cards for the last school year and meet with each student and their guardian to check their progress and see how they are getting on and if any changes need to be made related to their educational needs.

Your prayers, as always, are vey much appreciated!!

Quick Update

Well, time seems to have got away from me somewhat this summer – it’s over 2 months since I last posted!

I’ve been spending some time in the UK with my husband, enjoying our roof garden, having nice meals together and generally enjoying each other’s company.

I had a day trip to Dublin with my niece for my birthday in July where she treated me to lunch on my first visit ever to a Hard Rock Cafe!

I had my head shaved to raise money for Transform Salone – just under £300 was raised. I quite like the bald look, but my husband isn’t so keen.

Transform Salone won a place in the 2017 London Marathon through the charity ballot, which I’m really excited about: every year my husband and I go to London to watch the marathon and cheer on the runners and next year we’ll be cheering on someone running for Transform Salone!! We don’t know yet who will be running for us – the place will go to whoever pledges to raise the most money.

I’m due to head back to Freetown in a couple of weeks – with the new school year starting in September it’s my busiest time of year. I need to check all the student’s report cards, get their uniforms, shoes, bags, supplies, text books…….the list goes on. I’m hoping for good results from our students this year, I know we have one boy who came second in his class and another who was top of his year for the whole school……so things are looking good so far!

Apart from popping back to the UK for a couple of weeks in October, I’ll pretty much be over in Freetown for the rest of the year. My niece is coming over to join me for November and we will be hosting our first joint Transform Salone/Mission Direct team while she is with me – if that goes well I’m hoping it will become a regular team each year.

I’m always in need of working, unlocked second hand phones, so if you have one lurking in a drawer somewhere give me a shout and I’ll take it off your hands!