Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is poised at a significant time in her history.  Beautiful yet devastated, poor in the midst of untold natural riches - she indeed is in a kairos window.  Her people, who have been patient are now pregnant with expectation, the new democratic government has to deliver.  A Call to Business and many others really believe in our hearts that Sierra Leone can and will be transformed.  Watch our brief dvd about Sierra Leone.

Since we first made contact with Christian businessmen in Sierra Leone in October 2005 the vision of A Call to Business has flourished and begun to bear good, seed-bearing fruit, with a national office in Freetown and a developing micro-finance business. A variety of business initiatives are taking root, with some major contracts expected to be granted soon which will require private equity funding.

Various other initiatives are springing up privately from those who have visited Sierra Leone with us and seen both its poverty and its potential. There are trips to Sierra Leone now almost on a monthly basis for those who would like to engage, and we have a growing number of volunteers who are going to be spending 3-6 months in country.

Microfinance

In the past three years micro-financing has been growing rapidly through A Call to Business in Sierra Leone. Read more about microfinance. The business is now facilitated by a team of over 20 in Freetown, including Loan Officers interfacing with clients to manage the loans in issue to all number of business types and an Operations Team. Leading the team is Joe Abass Bangura, Managing Director. Read Joe's profile here.

Development

Contact was made a couple of years ago with Emmaus, a small NGO pioneering a Construction Skills Training Centre in Sierra Leone, training young men in various aspects of construction, including using the innovative Hydroform Building System (www.hydraform.com) to make building blocks using locally available mud and a small amount of cement which produces durable bricks used in the construction of buildings.

Emmaus and A Call to Business are now working together to expand and establish the Skills Training Centre, adding to the training in construction skills and diversifying into other areas including a skills training programme for women.

A Call to Business and Emmaus have almost completed the construction of a new Junior Secondary School which will be able to feed and educate 2-300 children from the area. The school has been built to a higher standard than most of the existing schools in Sierra Leone with a steel frame produced in Ireland and the school construction itself overseen by skilled foreign and local labour. Plans are now in hand for the school to open its doors to its first intake of students in January 2010.

It is also hoped that a start will soon be made on an ambitious orphanage project for a group of polio victim children.

Elmer and Joann Reifel, two full-time missionaries, flew to Freetown at the beginning of October 2009, and are living on-site in Newton to oversee all aspects of this major community project.

Alongside the school and skills training centre is development of an agricultural project, which will both provide food for the school students, skills training and incubator business projects for the area.

As the development of the skills training centre gathers apace, we envisage many opportunities to support the local community in business development, bringing microfinance into the area to help develop already existing businesses.

For information on all aspects of our work in Sierra Leone, contact marjie.sutton@acalltobusiness.co.uk.

Rogbere School