From Peace Corps teacher to World Bank manager to Friends of Sierra Leone president, Mike Diliberti gave his all for Sierra Leone. To celebrate his life, we have planted our first “Baby Orchard.” A new generation of children will be able to go to school when the fruit from Mike’s Orchard is sold.
Ten acres of tropical forest in a small village deep in coastal Bumpeh Chiefdom are forever preserved to honor Mike’s 40 years of service to Sierra Leone.
Mike in 2011 visit on the porch of his old house in Sembehun where he served as Peace Corps teacher. He stayed four years and started the chiefdom’s first secondary school.
In this summer’s rains, 1,500 fruit trees were planted — cashew, plum, mango, inter-planted with faster growing guava and pineapple that produce fruit in one to two years.
Sherbro Foundation’s Board funded the “Baby Orchard” to create long-term income for the chiefdom’s Newborn Education Savings Program, and dedicated it to Mike. Education savings accounts are opened for newborns and funded by fruit income. When a child reaches the age of twelve, they will have money for a secondary school education. I think Mike would have liked the idea, and I know his family does.
Left, Bagging fast growing young guava trees in the tree nursery to plant in Mike’s Orchard last July. These will be fruiting and earning money in their second year.
Mike was one of the first people I met when we all joined the Peace Corps in 1974 and were assigned to Moyamba District as teachers. Mike went to Sembehun, I to Rotifunk. Our friendship grew with weekend R&R trips to Moyamba town and wherever volunteers gathered. Mike was such a warm and engaging guy, that early bond was remained over the years.
A flood of memories came back when we lost Mike last year.
It’s safe to say but for Mike, Sherbro Foundation would not exist today. He encouraged me to join a Friends of Sierra Leone trip in 2011, my first return in 35 years. Ever the African traveler, he coordinated a tour of our former Moyamba District villages for five of us, including Wendy Diliberti, his wife, Sherbro Foundation Board Member Steve Papelian and Howie Fleck.
Left, Sembehun Village flocked to see Mr. Mike when he returned to visit in 2011.
If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have reconnected with Rotifunk and seen the great need in such a personal way. As I later struggled with ideas on how I could help, it was Mike who encouraged me to start a new organization, and just go for it.
Now, just three years after Sherbro Foundation was founded, we can point to Mike’s Orchard, a lasting – and growing – memorial. It’s not only part of the larger Village Orchard Program, but one of six successful projects the foundation has helped Bumpeh Chiefdom to launch.
Sherbro Foundation helps villages start community orchards, creating sustainable income for development projects and to send children to school. In a few years, a village may see thousands of dollars in annual fruit income for village projects they choose: to dig wells, build primary schools, improve roads, etc. Orchard income will also fund newborn education savings accounts for years to come.
A Milwaukee, WI native, Mike served a total of four years in the Peace Corps as both a teacher and principal. He and Wendy settled in Virginia, where they raised two children, and Mike had a thirty year career with the World Bank, focused on Africa. The international organization issues loans to underdeveloped nations to help eliminate poverty.
Mike’s lifetime of work with Sierra Leone started with teaching children and developing schools. I think he would be pleased to be part of the Orchard program. The Mike Diliberti Memorial Orchard will now help ensure secondary school educations for a whole generation of children in Bumpeh Chiefdom. You can view how an orchard is planted here.
— Arlene Golembiewski, Executive Director, Sherbro Foundation
Seedlings are tended and watered for one to two years, then given to villages to plant community orchards and to parents of newborns to raise for income for their child’s education.
Here’s how an orchard gets started:
They position the nursery next to a swamp for a ready supply of soil and water. Nurseries are built inexpensively. They’re bamboo pergolas, made from bamboo felled in nearby forests. Palm fronds laid over the top shelter young seedlings from the hot, dry season sun.
Orchard sites are usually 10 acres and hand cleared by machete, but not burned. The cut brush is laid down as an organic mulch.
Villages will earn money faster as fast-growing fruits and bushes shelter the slower growing fruit tree seedlings from the hot equatorial sun. Cassava bushes, left, shelter a two-year old mango, above.
The Adult Literacy program was a fast start and one of our first. Only committed students, dedicated volunteer teachers, a classroom and a blackboard required. No cajoling needed.
I remember the women I met in 2013 and why they wanted to start learning now. Kadiatu, left, was chief instigator and lobbied for classes for two years. She was her family’s breadwinner and head of Rotifunk’s women trader’s union, otherwise known as market women.
Magdelaine, with me on my far left, took a co-op style nurse’s aide training program in the district capital. Back home in Rotifunk, she works at the hospital.
On October 24, students took their seats for the first evening computer training class in the new Computer Center building. With two months left in the year, it’s a self-paced evening class for adults. An afternoon class for high school students will follow in the next term.
Our Rotifunk partner, the Center for Community Empowerment & Transformation, CCET, hired their first full-time employee to lead computer training classes and run the new printing service.
The Center can handle 20 computer students in a class. A long table lines a wall so students can plug into wall outlets now powered with solar energy.
The economical high-volume, low-energy copier was met with cheers at the Rotifunk facility. With good reason – it’s the only printing service within several hours drive. Printing once meant a trip to the capital Freetown.
Now, the computing center — built from a war ruin — is being used to instruct students and adults on computer use. It also hosts adult literacy classes for the many whose educations were cut short by the war. The solar-powered building is available to rent, the only modern building for miles suitable for meetings and community events of 20 – 100. Primary school teacher training, above, was the first rental customer.
The large duplicator was purchased with a $3,750 grant Sherbro Foundation received from the Ann Arbor (MI) Rotary Club and its District Rotary group. We purchased and shipped the duplicator to our Sierra Leone partner, the Center for Community Empowerment & Transformation (CCET), which operates the Center.
Customers soon lined up for the unique service, which spares them an eight hour round-trip to the capital, Freetown. Many are teachers from Bumpeh’s five secondary and 40 primary schools, who need to print reading materials (students have few textbooks), exam papers and report cards.
Members of the Caulker Descendants Association at their July 2016 family reunion – their 17th reunion.
The Caulker Family tree documents their 350 year history starting at the base of the tree with Thomas Coker, born 1667 in Ireland. The tree was constructed by Imodale Caulker Burnett after many years of research into the family’s history she then chronicled in 
A family reunion wouldn’t be complete without a sheet cake to serve a crowd. But how many families can decorate their cake with a family coat of arms dating to the 1600’s. 
Arlene Golembiewski, Sherbro Foundation Executive Director, accepts the Caulker family Scholarship Fund donation from Enid Rogers, a Caulker grandchild, at their reunion banquet dinner. 
Zainab’s story stated out badly. She’s one of many girls faced with poverty and an early arranged marriage when her mother could no longer pay for her to stay in secondary school. Zainab later left this older man, who already had a wife, and she returned to school.
Enter any monthly amount you choose. $10 a month is a painless way to ensure you’re sending girls to school throughout the year. In twelve months, you’ll have paid for 
For years, the longtime traditional leader of Bumpeh Chiefdom dreamed of ways life could improve for its 44,000 rural residents.
“Girls are more serious and work harder. They get better jobs. They take their family responsibilities seriously, and ensure their children and parents are taken care of.
“Women do 70 percent of the work on the family farm but are not allowed to make decisions on running the farm or selling crops. Their husband controls the money and may carelessly spend it on himself for things like gambling with his friends,” he said frankly.
“His wife returns late in the day as the sun is going down. She may still need to go buy fresh produce and collect firewood and water before making a fire to cook the family dinner. Her husband will then expect her to have sex that night and she can’t refuse.”
The names of a group of slaves were posted in front. Chief Caulker noted one name, Amada, saying it sounded like a Sierra Leone name. Could this have been a Sierra Leonean? 
Rotifunk’s first Community Computer Center will soon start the area’s first copy and printing service, thanks to a grant from the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor, MI.![Rotary-Web-Banner-New12[1] (2)](https://sherbrofoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/rotary-web-banner-new121-2.jpg?w=640)
Ann Arbor’s public service club awarded a $2,500 grant to Sherbro Foundation Sierra Leone, matched by $1,250 from Rotary District 6380. The money will equip a copying and printing business, helping the much-needed nonprofit center quickly become self-sustaining and introduce computer technology in the chiefdom.
Sherbro Foundation’s local nonprofit partner, the Center for Community Empowerment and Transformation (CCET), comprised of teacher-volunteers, will operate the Computer Center and hire an IT manager. They transformed a centrally located ruin into a spacious, modern Computer Center complete with a snack bar – all done during the Ebola crisis.
Paramount Chief Charles Caulker joined Sherbro Foundation in meeting with the Ann Arbor Rotary Club during his March – April US visit. We all celebrated Bumpeh Chiefdom’s work with a dinner, left, hosted by Rotarians Mary Avrakotos and Barb Bach.
found my invitation message and brought a group to Chief’s April 6th presentation.
Sherbro Foundation Board Members Arlene Golembiewski and Steve Papelian, left, are former Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Rotifunk, Chief Caulker’s hometown. They reminisced with Chief on their life-changing experience at the steps of the University of Michigan Union, where then-presidential candidate John Kennedy first presented his new concept of the Peace Corps in 1960. The 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps was commemorated at Ann Arbor’s U-M Union with this historic marker, depicting President Kennedy’s speech.
Sherbro Foundation 