CCET-SL volunteer and local teacher Mr. Sennessy (left, blue shirt) and Mrs. Kaimbay, CCET-SL Director and local principal, right, watch as a young volunteer prepares her seedling bag.

It’s the rainy season now in Sierra Leone and planting time.  Rotifunk is busy planting tree seedlings to raise in their nursery for trees of economic value. 

Thanks to cell phone pictures and Facebook, we can all now see the nursery taking shape and seedlings growing.

The tree nursery is a project of Rotifunk’s home grown nonprofit organization, the Center for Community Empowerment and Transformation.  CCET-SL’s aim is to empower their community in development with projects like the tree nursery.  With these projects, they hope to transform lives of the average person in Bumpeh Chiefdom.

I shouldn’t say they hope to transform lives.  They plan to transform lives. With simple, concrete projects like the tree nursery that will have clear payback, this isn’t a leap of faith.  Next year, the trees will be ready for people to plant in their own gardens and farms to improve their family’s diet and gain income by selling their surplus.   Citrus, coconut and oil palm trees, as well as teak trees for future lumber sale.

Bumpeh Chiefdom is a rural area rich in agriculture.  So, economic development here starts with agriculture projects. To read the whole story about the Economic Tree Nursery,  click here to see an earlier post.  Sherbro Foundation has supported the nursery project with money to buy farm tools and young oil palm seedlings bred for early fruiting.

Filling polythene bags with soil that will allow seedling to form deep roots. This looks like rich silty soil from the Bumpeh River floodplain.

Rotifunk community gets involved with preparing the bags to hold seedlings.

Seedlings will be nursed in the nursery, watered and protected from the dry season’s hot tropical sun til ready to plant next year.  Families across Bumpeh Chiefdom are eligible to get trees at a token cost.

CCET-SL volunteers and local teachers Osmun Kamara and Phillip Komoh.  I’d guess these are coconut seedlings.