 This year marks Sherbro Foundation’s 10th anniversary, bringing back a flood of memories. Few are as vivid or became as important as the Orchards for Education, below 2023.  I traveled to Sierra Leone for two years before founding Sherbro Foundation. It was back then that Paramount Chief Charles Caulker told me the story of his baby tree he dearly loved. A coconut tree was planted together with his umbilical cord in his mother’s village at the traditional naming ceremony. After about ten days when it’s clear the newborn will survive, it is presented to the community and their name proclaimed. Baby Charles was named after UK’s Prince Charles, born the year before. Below, a naming ceremony I attended for two newborns in Rotifunk  After weaning, two-year-old baby Charles was sent to live with his maternal grandparents in their village until he started primary school, a traditional practice. His grandfather taught him to water his coconut tree and take care of it. The small child could see his tree growing as he did in his first few years. It was an early lesson for children in valuing trees and caring for the environment. When he later returned on school holidays, Chief Caulker said the first thing he wanted to see was how his coconut tree had grown and to learn to climb it like the village boys. I heard this story sitting with Chief under grapefruit trees his father had planted over 40 years before. It was a miserably hot day, when the sweat trickled down your back just sitting still. Chief took me to the grapefruit grove to escape into the shade. Kids climbed the trees and we ate grapefruit they dropped down that were still sweet and delicious.  Chief reminisced about his uncle saying, if you take care of a tree, the tree will take care of you years later. It will provide fruit you can eat and sell for money to live on. Chief Caulker, above, among coconut tree seedlings in today’s tree nursery. He then lamented that the tradition of planting trees for babies was lost during the war. Today, those trees could be providing money for parents to send their children to school, he said. It was that hot afternoon under the grapefruit trees in 2013 that we decided we would start partner organizations to send girls to school and grow fruit orchards to later self-fund chiefdom education programs. Fast-forward to 2023 and Orchards for Education are reality. I had the pleasure in February of sitting under the shade of coconut, lime and guava trees towering over us we planted nearly six years ago. Here’s a look at how the Orchards for Education came to be. The very first grant newly formed Sherbro Foundation made to its new partner CCET-SL in 2013 was $600 to start a fruit tree nursery. Ebola brought the project to a halt in 2014, but we resumed growing fruit tree seedlings as soon as we could in 2015. All trees in the orchard program have been grown in the nursery from seed of local fruit.  The tree nursery, above, consists of simple pergolas made of bamboo lashed together. Palm fronds are added on top for shade in the dry season. This nursery has grown 30,000 tree seedlings over the years: coconut, orange, lime, grapefruit, guava, avocado, African plum, cashew, soursop and recently, cacao. Some Malaysian oil palm were gifted.  Chief Caulker, left, plants a lime tree seedling in 2017. Over five years, sixty acres of orchards were developed, fifteen acres at a time. Land is first manually cleared and one to two-year-old tree seedlings are planted in grids of 60 to 100 trees per acre. Bumpeh Chiefdom is lowland tropical rainforest with a distinct four-month dry season, hot with no rain. Tree seedlings must be hand-watered for 2 -3 years until their roots are established. Then they flourish.  CCET-SL Director, Rosaline Kaimbay and Arlene, above, with a coconut tree one year after planting. In the early days, there was room to intercrop between young trees. Newly germinating corn is seen here. At three years, trees are well established. Chief Caulker and Arlene, below, admire three-year-old coconut and lime trees reaching their height and more.   In tropical rainforest climate, everything wants to grow. Trees have a huge growth surge in the rainy season – as do the weeds! Workers spend weeks manually cutting back weeds three to four times a year, as well as watering young trees. Cut weeds become a natural mulch and add to soil fertility. We’re proud the orchards created jobs for 21 full-time workers and one hundred part-time seasonal workers. Growing fruit trees to maturity takes patience. It’s a labor of love and the reward is worth it. Below, five years after planting, coconut trees are clearly thriving.  Five and a half year-old lime trees, below, tower over Arlene and friend. They’re the first trees to fruit.  In 2023, the first trees reached mature fruiting stage: lime and guava. Pineapples, plantain, bananas and cassava are also being grown as two-year crops. For now, early fruit income is limited and goes into paying orchard operating costs. It took five years to plant all 60 acres of orchards. Many trees take 7 – 8 years to mature. It will be about thirteen years from first planting to full maturity of all 4500 trees. The first coconuts planted will take another 2 – 3 years to fruit. But coconuts will be the biggest money-makers and keep fruiting for an estimated 20 years. |
I asked Chief Caulker, left, how he felt now that it’s ten years since we embarked on his dream of Orchards for Education. “I’m proud!” he exclaimed.
“We’ve exceeded my early expectations despite the challenges of climate change with more heat and limited water access. Agriculture is a risky business. But we’ve done well and we’re well on our way to our goal of educating our children ourselves.”
We must thank the Rotary Club of Ann Arbor for helping Chief Caulker realize his vision for the orchards. They took the lead in sponsoring two Rotary global grants of two years each to start the orchards. They organized 19 Rotary clubs in the US, Canada and India who contributed to the grants.
Fifteen of the sixty acres of orchards are designated to provide fruit income for indigent health care in Bumpeh Chiefdom. Thanks go to the Wilmington, N.C. Rotary Club, who were partners in the grant and raised funds for this part of the orchards.
Sherbro Foundation donors also contributed to the Rotary orchard grant. With matching from the Rotary International Foundation and district Rotary funds, those donations grew to cover about 25% of the project. Thank you!
I’m now like the young Charles Caulker. Every time I visit Bumpeh Chiefdom, the first thing I want to see are “my trees.” With each year, I’m seeing the orchards growing the future of their children’s education right before my eyes. The dream is reality.
— Arlene Golembiewski
Executive Director
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Contact Us: sherbrofoundation@gmail.com
Ibrahim Bangura, left, waited a long time for his opportunity to get a bachelor’s degree in science education. Far too long. He qualified for university 18 years ago, soon after Sierra Leone’s rebel war ended. But he lost his father while in primary school, and his mother as a small market trader couldn’t help him.
“All this while I have been doing community teaching, teaching mathematics and physics,” Ibrahim told me. “So, I have taught pupils at senior high who are now graduates in the fields of medicine, engineering, as well as professional teachers within science.”
Tamba Kemoore Gborie is another MMTU student awarded a scholarship. He attended the Bo Government Secondary School, one of the oldest boys’ high schools in the country, and one of the few offering the full science curriculum. From there, Gborie said, “I started growing my love for science subjects.”
A young woman from Rotifunk started medical school this fall with our third Saa Chakporna scholarship. Aminata Kanu completed two years of premedical science courses at the University of Sierra Leone and was admitted as a full medical student.
Another Rotifunk resident is pursuing primary care medicine as a community health officer. Gibril Bendu will be at the front line of health care when he completes his degree funded by the Sherbro Foundation board.
We anxiously await Tommy Sankoh finishing his degree in agricultural economics at Njala University. With his return to Rotifunk, he’ll advise CCET-SL on its agriculture program and teach high school students and local farmers improved growing techniques and developing farming as a business.
Rotifunk, the chiefdom’s headquarters town, was typical in seeing only about 30% of teens make it to junior high.
When his father died, Kamiru, left, waited three years after graduating high school before the CCET-SL program was available to help him repeat the WASSCE exam.
Sometimes a principal just hands new teachers a book and sends them to a class to teach. The principal often teaches full time themselves and has little time to monitor or coach a young teacher. 
Too often these young impressionable students see the opposite – young people who dropped out of school and with the little money they earned bought cheap cell phones and flashy clothes.
Tutorial Programs
Primary School Tutorials
Vocational Scholarships
Teacher Training Scholarships
Nursing & University Scholarships
Today, Kadiatu, left, is in the first group of teachers Sherbro Foundation is returning to school to pursue their HTC – the Higher Teacher’s Certificate. 
Salamatu, left, another scholarship recipient, was born and raised in Rotifunk, and has been a primary school teacher there for nearly 20 years. We didn’t know just how important – and urgent – it was to open the door to higher education for her with a scholarship right now. 
Salamatu’s story as a teacher goes back 25 years. 
They’re women like Yeama, left, who could be on her way to becoming “middle class” in her subsistence society.
The women needed instant capitalization to bring more earnings home that improve their daily lives, as well as save. Soon, 40 more traders were added, 20 of them “fish mongers,” like Marie left, who buy dried fish from fishing villages to sell in Rotifunk.
One invigorated trader is Zainab, left, who had to drop out of school at the 9th grade. She was forced into an early marriage because her family could no longer feed her at home. 
Adama, left, works very hard at her new opportunity. One of her husband’s two wives, she was forced to provide for her five children alone. The four oldest were married off young because she couldn’t afford to support them.
With Sherbro Foundation funding, 9th and 12th grade students came in droves for this free extra help. CCET-SL had to limit enrollment to the capacity of the CCET-SL education center, about 75 students at a time.
The best qualified local teachers combine forces in extra classes for students from three schools.
Izzy is back in school now to avoid this fate. She’s in a vocational course teaching her electrical wiring. She chose that because it will lead to a wage-paying job with a future She’ll be poised on the leading edge of Sierra Leone’s solar revolution.
She was an 11th grade student aimlessly drifting in a conventional school that didn’t offer much to a student like her. Izzy (short for Ismatu) lost first one parent, then the other. She lives with her grandmother, helping in her catering business, which in rural Rotifunk, is down more than up.
Now she’s learning a skill that will set her up in a trade with opportunities, as Sierra Leone’s construction industry grows and electrical power takes off.
When Izzy was selected for one of the first 12 Bumpeh Chiefdom positions at the new technical institute in the district capital Moyamba, she saw electrical wiring was a course option. She didn’t hesitate.
Easy Solar is one company bringing small solar units to rural African households. It installs solar panels with as little as 25 to 50 watts capacity, enough to run a couple LED lights and charge phones, plug in a radio or another small device.
The above solar mini-grid is an example of many being installed in rural Sierra Leone.
Over six years, Sherbro Foundation sent over 800 Bumpeh Chiefdom girls to school with scholarships, most with repeat scholarships.
If fortunate to finish high school, most graduates need to earn an income right away. They start teaching straight out of high school, sometimes as a primary school teacher.
Aziz is applying for one. He’s been teaching for seven years. Aziz was born in Mogbongboto, a small village deep in Bumpeh Chiefdom near where the Bumpeh River opens to the ocean. His parents were subsistence farmers, living off the land. He is one of twenty children his father gave birth to. His family can’t offer any financial help to further his education.
“At first I never want to be a teacher looking at the way the profession is neglected,” Aziz commented last year. “Later on I take it as a job. And now it’s becoming my profession.”
“CCET-SL works to compliment the government’s Free Quality Education program,” Chief Caulker, left, said. “One thing the government is not able to do now is send teachers back to school to develop strong teaching skills. It’s right for CCET-SL to step in and help our own teachers. We’ve tailored teacher training scholarships for our needs and to serve as a tool for developing our chiefdom.”
We’re celebrating the life of Dr. Winifred Smith Bradford (October 20, 1922 – July 19, 2020), a remarkable woman who dedicated herself to serving women and children around the world.
Dr. Smith’s time at Yale wasn’t for naught. There she met the love of her life and partner in service, Lester Bradford, a forestry major. Her goal of being a missionary doctor was undeterred and just changed geography to Africa – Sierra Leone, West Africa. The United Brethren in Christ (UBC), an arm of the Methodist Church, first sent her to prepare at the London School of Tropical Medicine.
Bumpeh Chiefdom’s government-run health units are staffed by a community health nurse, usually operating alone, who diagnoses and treats common infectious disease like malaria and diarrhea, provides pre/postnatal care for pregnant women and serves as midwife to deliver babies. They vaccinate babies and monitor for malnutrition. They can provide family planning services, basic first aid like stitching wounds and screen for chronic disease for referral, like hypertension and diabetes.
Rural areas like Bumpeh Chiefdom have reported few, if any, cases. Life largely takes place outside where breeze offers natural dilution.
Chiefdom meetings now take place with distancing and masks.
Trainers emphasized practical demonstrations, with participants practicing proper handwashing and mask use.
Over 9000 Sherbro Foundation funded masks were distributed so residents can comply with chiefdom (and now government) requirements.
195 hand washing stations and soap were also given to village leaders for their public places. With no running water and few wells, this encourages handwashing where people convene.
“I am very much delighted for the completion of the training of our section safety teams. I followed the process with keen interest and I am tremendously satisfied with the accomplishments. My section chiefs and their people constantly called me and expressed appreciation for the exercise while it was on.”
Our partner CCET-SL resumed its special all-day 12th grade school in its education center July 1, preparing Rotifunk’s graduating students for their national exam. Masks and distancing required.
Bumpeh Chiefdom, Sierra Leone, took immediate action in April against Covid-19 before any confirmed case reached them — and has kept the virus out so far. But it’s quickly spreading all around them.
We know Covid-19 is a stealth virus and hard to control. But Bumpeh Chiefdom has a head start, learning from its Ebola ordeal. Covid-19 starts as a traveler’s disease, first carried in by air travelers from infected countries. Sierra Leone has only limited flights and directly quarantined all arriving air passengers in Freetown throughout March; starting in February, for passengers originating in China.
But the April 17 report shows nearly a doubling of cases from 15 to 26. Most new cases are reported linked to the second case; they worked at the same hospital. But the doctor’s husband rightfully said it’s time to concentrate on community transmission. She appears to have been infected by community transfer. Her family, housekeepers and close hospital work associates have tested negative, while hospital nurses with little to no contact with her tested positive this week. They could have been community-exposed as the doctor was. As was the lab technician.
The government’s control program now limits travel to within each of its 16 districts, set a 9 pm to 6 am curfew, limits public-sector business hours (the largest employer) and stresses staying at home wherever possible. Hand washing and social distancing are emphasized. They continue contact tracing and quarantines, but that will soon outstrip capacity to handle new cases.
Social distancing is initially hard to get used to. The weekly women’s small grant meeting, above, spread out, but not quite six feet. Chief not only stopped gatherings, but leads by example, applying the six-foot rule in his own interactions. Our partner CCET-SL leaders do the same. Hand-washing stations are set up in public places, and people urged to wash hands at home.
Outside traders bring in fish, the main protein source for most.
They also become part of the savings plan of the new Women’s Small Grant Program, where women deposit part of each week’s earnings, left.
Sherbro Foundation 