Educating future leaders

By Bill Hedley, August 30, 2007 [Diocese of Southern Ohio] Sierra Leone is one of the very poorest countries in the whole world.  Its six million citizens have an average annual income of only $180.  From 1992 to 1998, the land was ravaged by a brutal war fomented by outside interests (Liberian warlord Charles Taylor, Colombian drug lords and various arms merchants) who were seeking blood diamonds as a source of untraceable funds to support their deadly activities.

The Society for the Advancement of Culture and Welfare in Sierra Leone ( SACSL) was founded in 1989 by Ade Ademu-John and other members of Christ Church, Dayton, to help this emerging country through a parish-to-parish partnership with St. George’s Anglican Cathedral in the capital city of Freetown.

SACSL’s first activity was to sponsor scholarships for the cathedral’s school for children who could not otherwise afford an education. SACSL then raised enough money to rebuild and radically expand the school from its former 500 student per day capacity to accommodate 1,600 students per day. Through SACSL, donors provide $65 per year scholarships to needy students in order to help educate the nation’s future leaders. One of Sierra Leone’s past presidents, Valentine Strasser, was a graduate of St. George’s Cathedral School.

SACSL’s cathedral contacts have identified other needs for facilities in Freetown, including medical and school supplies, clothing, computers, prostheses and Braille equipment. SACSL then selects these items from the Matthew 25 warehouse in Cincinnati and pays about $8,000 to have them shipped in 40-foot long sea containers to Freetown for distribution there by the cathedral contacts. These containers each hold approximately 20,000 pounds of goods and on the average have an approximate delivered value of $250,000.

Since the value of the goods received is approximately 30 times the cost to provide them, a gift of only $6 provides as much goods as an average Sierra Leonean makes in one year. SACSL has already sent 42 of these sea containers filled with goods and is planning to send another one later this year.  
 
For more information: call Ade Ademu-John at 937.274.9241 or e-mail him at wademujohn@earthlink.net.  

To participate/donate: Mail a check (a tax-deductible contribution) made out to “SACSL” and send it to Dorothea Sammur, Treasurer – SACSL, P.O.Box 752, Dayton, 45401.

-- Bill Hedley is a contributor to Interchange, the newspaper of the Diocese of Southern Ohio.

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