2023 is Sherbro Foundation’s tenth anniversary! We have much to celebrate from a ten-year partnership with our friends in Bumpeh Chiefdom. We formed a joint vision back in 2013 with Paramount Chief Charles Caulker. We would send girls to school and start on his dream of growing fruit trees to fund future education programs. Chief founded our partner group, the Center for Community Empowerment & Transformation (CCET-SL), and I started Sherbro Foundation.
There’s been twists and turns over the ten years and adventures we couldn’t have imagined that only made our relationship stronger. We’ve passed the test of time, met our early goals and expanded beyond them.
This called for celebrating!
Chief Caulker and CCET-SL put on a weekend-long event for their program beneficiaries and 300 chiefdom people. Sherbro Foundation Board directors Steve Papelian and Cheryl Farmer, Mary Avrakotos, Ann Arbor Rotary Club and I joined government officials and other VIP’s as honored guests.
Rotifunk was abuzz with activity for an event this big. To bring people from across the chiefdom, Chief Caulker arranged boats carrying them from villages up and down the Bumpeh River.
Women set up in locations around town cooking to feed all the guests. Massive pots cooked rice and plassas for 40 or 50 people each.
Baffa shelters were built on a school sports field from bamboo cut and lashed together. Big palm branches laid on top shaded us from the hot tropical sun. Hundreds of chairs borrowed from schools were carried over to seat guests.
On the big day, the women’s society created a festive atmosphere. Their pulsating drumming and dancing with their Bundu devils, below, energized the crowd.
Reflecting on our early days
As I sat waiting for the event to start, I was thinking of our early days. CCET-SL and SFSL in 2013 would be unrecognizable today. For four years CCET-SL was a group of volunteer teachers, offering their services after school and on weekends to start new programs.
The living room of Chief Caulker’s small guest house was CCET-SL’s office. I carried the first computers over in a suitcase, and only a couple teachers knew the basics of using them. Memos were written by hand and snapped to send as a photo. Project photos often served as reports. With limited phone service and few smart phones, most business was (and still is) done by Whatsapp calls and texts.
But we got started. SFSL has always followed the principle that we support goals and objectives our partner sets for itself. I still remember Chief Caulker’s words that we will start with “small, beautiful things.” Things we can start quickly that will have an impact on improving the lives of chiefdom people within months, not years.
Chief had already waited for ten years after Sierra Leone’s war for government or NGO funding that never came. With SFSL’s help, he could take charge and act on projects he knew were greatly needed. But SFSL was new. So, we picked things that were simple to start with little funding and achievable in the short term. Concrete results from these fledgling efforts encouraged more donations.
The first two projects SFSL funded in 2013 were $20 school fee scholarships for 120 girls and $600 for a tree nursery to grow fruit tree seedlings to start the Orchards for Education program. $350 to start adult education soon followed when local illiterate women said they want to learn to read and write.
Today, there’s multiple programs and ten years of results to call out at our celebration.
CCET-SL director Rosaline Kaimbay, left, gave an impassioned review of how the organization developed over ten years.
She’s been there from the beginning and deserves the credit for creating innovative education and women’s programs and leading them to where they are today. Thank you, Rosaline!
CCET-SL program graduates who moved on to higher education filled a large part of the main seating area. Their blue T-shirts proudly declare they are CCET-SL alumni. Gathered together in one spot, below, they showed just how far CCET-SL programs have come over ten years.
Program beneficiaries illustrate results
CCET-SL wanted to showcase its results – educating and developing people. Beneficiaries of nine programs talked about the impact CCET-SL had on them and their peers.
Our first university scholarship graduate, Aminata Kamara, is an alumna of CCET-SL tutorial programs that prepared her for university. An outstanding student, she lost an opportunity to study in China. Now a B.S. degree graduate, she told young students they must seize the opportunities CCET-SL gives them from primary school to university to “learn book”.
She thanked us all for changing her life. We couldn’t be prouder of Aminata. Today, seven students follow her on their education journey with university scholarships.
Salamatu Fofanah, primary school headmistress applauded CCET-SL for coaching primary schools. This is where we build a strong education foundation, she said. Two years ago, Bumpeh Chiefdom primary schools were among the lowest scoring schools in Moyamba district. They’ve rapidly improved to be among the top schools with CCET-SL support.
Salamatu is one of 13 local teachers completing teaching certificates with CCET-SL scholarships. “We are proud and honored to say we are trained and qualified teachers!”
Anne Marie Kaimbay didn’t get the college entrance exam scores for university admission on her first try. She repeated 12th grade in CCET-SL’s WASCCE preparation class and passed the exam the second time. She’s now a 2nd year civil engineering student at the University of Sierra Leone. 50 more students are in CCET-SL’s WASSCE preparation class.
Anne Marie proudly told the crowd, “Whatever a man can do, a woman can do better.”
Teacher James Kamara’s commitment to leading the 9th grade after-school tutorial program shows in its results.
He described the senior high entrance exam results steadily growing each year to 100% of all students passing in 2022.
“Bravo to CCET-SL,” he declared for offering this program free of charge to students. “Special thanks to our paramount chief for helping Bumpeh Chiefdom make the mark in education.”
Isatu Bendu has a special place in my heart. I met her eight years ago in CCET-SL’s adult education program. Now a primary school teacher, she told her story of being a primary school drop-out from an illiterate farming family. With CCET-SL’s help, she passed the entrance exam for a primary school teacher training program and today teaches class one.
She proudly said she’s gone from being “nobody” to a respected member of the community – a teacher.
Our first women’s program was for Ebola relief. Farming and markets had been shut down for months, slashing incomes.
Hawanatu Sesay explained how the Women’s Vegetable Growing Project helped her and her peers. With project seed for peanuts and vegetables, they harvested within 3 or 4 months, earning cash to feed their families. The project went on to help 400 women get back on their feet over three years.
Graduates of nursing and vocational training programs and primary school students gave their stories of how CCET-SL’s education programs moved them forward.
A Paramount Chief’s vision realized
I don’t think anyone that day was more proud than Paramount Chief Caulker. He realized his dream of educating Bumpeh Chiefdom people that today continues. He beamed as each speaker recounted their personal story of life-changing education made possible by CCET-SL. With education, they’re going on to develop the chiefdom.
Chief spoke of his own goal of bringing the Orchards for Education program to maturity. The orchards will soon begin generating income to fund education programs for years to come.
The self-sufficiency vision Chief laid out ten years ago was achieved with 60 acres of fruit orchards well on their way to fruiting stage. The first lime and coconut trees planted now tower over us.
We ended the day relaxing in the orchard we planted from seedlings grown in our own nursery.
Chief Caulker poured libation, left, to thank the ancestors for looking over the success of our work and asking them to continue to guide us and grant us all long life.
Chief could now lean back now among the orchard trees with friends and relish ten years of work well done. We enjoyed palm wine freshly tapped from orchard palm trees. This is what satisfaction looks like. Mary Avrakotos, Ann Arbor Rotary Club, above left, and Steve Papelian, SFSL Board Director and former Rotifunk Peace Corps Volunteer, right, join Chief Caulker.
You, the supporters of Sherbro Foundation, were called out and thanked many times that day. You weren’t there, but you were in our minds and part of the celebration.
Please stop now to take a virtual bow that you richly deserve. So many of you have continued to support Bumpeh Chiefdom people for years.
On behalf of Chief Caulker, CCET-SL and Bumpeh Chiefdom people, we send you our deepest thanks. We’re grateful that you’ve been part of our ten-year journey. You have truly changed the lives of many people.
Thank you!
— Arlene Golembiewski
Executive Director
Sherbro Foundation 