Sherbro Foundation is awarded a P&G Alumni Foundation 2016 grant
The $12,235 grant is awarded on behalf of our Sierra Leone partner, the Center for Community Empowerment & Transformation (CCET), and will help expand their computer center.
Left, Oliver Bernard, CCET volunteer facility manager at the Center
Former Procter & Gamble employees fund their alumni foundation with the mission of economically empowering those in need.
Sherbro Foundation Executive Director and P&G Alumna Arlene Golembiewski, left with Sulaiman Timbo, submitted the proposal. She said, “CCET’s new Center offers practical education programs, before unavailable in this community, that improve student earning potential, like computer training and adult literacy.
“They are preparing impoverished people to find wage-paying jobs in the formal economy. And providing skills to develop small businesses.”
The Computer Center has a slate of education programs and community services that satisfied all three Alumni Foundation objectives for the grant.
High school students like Zainab, left, get practical job skill training on computers.
She wants to become an accountant and knows she must be able to use a computer to get a job.
Adults develop small business skills. Left, Francis Senesie teaches petty market traders and farmers math and business basics like computing profit.
Adult computer students apply their own small-business examples with instructors available to guide them.
The Center itself is a new entrepreneurial venture, offering previously unavailable services like copy & printing that fund its nonprofit education programs.
The grant will pay for adding new computers to the Center and a color printer for the new printing service. CCET will buy remaining equipment the Center needs, like a generator to back-up their solar power service and a chest freezer to expand a canteen service.
The grant will also be used to pay initial operating costs while the new Center develops its customer base for copy and printing and other Center services.
The Computer Center is bringing the first and only IT technology access and training to rural Bumpeh Chiefdom’s 40,000 people. It’s the only place in Moyamba District with 300,000 people to get an IT certificate covering all Microsoft Office software programs.
The grant required a P&G alum to participate in the project. Arlene Golembiewski, Sherbro Foundation founder and Executive Director, was a 30-year P&G employee and is a member of the global Alumni Network.
Mr. Bendu, a primary school head-teacher, came into the new printing service at the Center for Community Empowerment & Transformation (CCET) to get some UN Children’s Feeding Program forms printed. He walked out of the new Community Computer Center 20 minutes later with his copies.
CCET’s new printing service in Rotifunk is scoring a home run for their customers and for themselves.
Only four months earlier, to get anything printed Mr. Bendu faced an all-day or an overnight trip to the capital, crammed into a minivan bus or on the back of a motorcycle taxi on treacherous roads. His transportation costs alone would have been 10 to 20 times the cost of the printing. The time wasted is just accepted, a common inefficiency holding back developing countries like Sierra Leone.
These three grant makers were happy to invest in projects giving this rural community services they never had before, knowing income goes to support nonprofit programs.
Sulaiman Timbo, left, and below left, is printing service and IT manager
Cell phones are now a way of life, and this means daily charging in a rural town with no electricity.
The CCET Center rents meeting and workshop space for NGO and government programs during the day, when no classes are in session. It’s the only place in town and for miles around with a facility to hold professional meetings for 20 to 100 people.
Next on the list to introduce is a small canteen for cold drinks, snacks and catered meals. The room next to the main hall, left, is ready.
There’s also a growing need for internet service. People may not own their own computer, but they want to be connected to the world around them by email and Facebook.
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.
Sherbro Foundation 