The Basic Needs: Fighting for Survival in Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone by all accounts should be the Saudi Arabia of Africa with its vast natural resource wealth. The West African nation is one of the most diamondiferous regions on the planet and yet they rank last in livability by UNICEF and the United Nations and boasts one of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates on the planet.  According to the 2008 Sierra Leone Demographic and Health report, nearly 1 in 10 infants and 1 in 8 mothers die during childbirth in the impoverished West African nation. One in five children, or 20 percent, dies before the age of 5.  The life expectancy hovers around the age of 48 years with some of the leading causes of death attributed to preventable diseases such as malaria,  streptococcus and pneumonia. So why does a country with so much wealth leave it’s people in such desperate circumstances and what can we do to help?

Steps are being taken by the government to address these issues. Yet, ten years after the end of the bloody civil war that killed and maimed thousands of people there is no visible change. Hospitals are forced to perform delicate procedures in the equivalent of field hospitals with little funding and resources. One group has made a difference though.

The WellBody Alliance under the direction of Sierra Leonean native, Dr. Bailor Berry and American Dr. Dan Kelly are leading the way and introducing several outreach programs and services to rural areas.  The clinic has served more than 10,000 patients in the past year up by almost 5,000 from the year before. Unfortunately, there is long road ahead for the people of Sierra Leone. Unemployment has settled around 70 percent, considered an optimistic number by some with little hope in the process for the future.

This photo story explores some of the aspects of healthcare in Sierra Leone.

BorBor Pain – Suffering Child

“One of the most dramatic examples we witnessed was a new phenomenon in Sierra Leonean mining—colonies of long-displaced refugees, including very young children, who struggle to survive by mining gravel.”  – Greg Campbell, excerpt from Greg Campbell’s blog on child labor in Sierra Leone.

I encourage everyone to read the piece by Greg Campbell about the rise of child labor labor and the mining industry in Sierra Leone. Click on the link below to read Campbell’s piece.

Something you can do to help Sierra Leone

BorBor Pain translates to “suffering child” in krio. It is no coincidence that Foday Mansaray named his charity school Suffering Child.  Mansaray’s  goal is to free all children from hard labor and offer a new hope to the future of Sierra Leone through free education. This photo essay depicts a small part of Mansaray’s struggle and the conditions from which he is trying to free children. Mansaray himself was a child laborer working in rock mines similar to the ones in Lumlee, Sierra Leone. His childhood was full of relocating fleeing violence and civil war until 2002. He was able to pay for his own schooling and graduated from college  with a degree. Rather than leaving his country or looking for high paid job with some security he returned to the shanty villages that are home to some of the world’s poorest people. Mansaray’s drive is as he says, directed by god.  “It is important because the children are the future of Sierra Leone. What kind of future do we have if we  have no education?”

Children take a break from sorting and crushing stone to be sold to construction companies in the coastal town of Lumlee, Sierra Leone. There are colonies of hundreds of people from the very old to the very young displaced from civil war that ended nearly a decade ago with no other real options for survival. Every hand on deck is used in the full process of mining the hard rock from the hillsides and carried to the bottom and crushed in to several different sizes to be sold.

Foday Mansaray, head master and creator of the BorBor Pain Charity School of Hope hangs a poster with a portion of the Child Rights Act, 2007 scribed for all visitors and students to read as they enter one of the class rooms. Mansasary grew up in the nearby area and moved between Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia for much of his childhood fleeing civil war and unrest. After working much of his youth in similar conditions he paid for his own education graduated from college and returned to his home to save children from the labor of crushing stones in to gravel for a US dollar per month. BorBor Pain translates to suffering child in krio. The charity school is free to all students, a stark contrast to the government schools which charge for enrollment, school supplies and uniforms.

An empty class room at the BorBor Pain Charity School. The school was constructed of zinc and bush stick with a dirt floor. Most supplies have been donated or scratched together with what little donations Foday Mansaray receives from those who can help financially.

Students fix the furniture so they can sit and listen to the lessons from their teacher. Because the school is free to all students, teachers often don’t get paid regularly and teach for the most part as volunteers. Although teachers have been known to walk out after extended periods of no paycheck. The teachers need to feed their families.

Students wait for their teacher.

A teacher grades tests as his students work through writing exercises.

Students listen to their teacher during writing lessons at the BorBor Pain Charity School of Hope.

Students listen to there teacher during writing lessons at the BorBor Pain Charity School of Hope.

A student at the BorBor Pain School of Hope takes notes during class. Just weeks before he was mining and crushing stone in a local rock quarry with his family.

A student at the BorBor Pain Charity School of Hope perpares for the day’s lessons.

Children play soccer during a break from the work at the local rock quarry in the coastal town Lumlee, Sierra Leone. Children as young as 3 years-old swings 5 pound sledge hammers to crush stone in to gravel.

Foday Mansaray talks to a girl who once attended his BorBor Pain Charity School of Hope. She broke her arm and has a difficult time mining rocks.

Foday Mansaray talks to a girl who once attended his BorBor Pain Charity School of Hope. She broke her arm and has a difficult time mining rocks.

A small child takes a break from the monotonous job of crushing big stones in to little stones at a rock quarry in the coastal town of Lumlee, Sierra Leone.

A small girl crushes stones with a sledge hammer and no shoes.

A child sifts through different sized stones in a massive rock pile at the rock quarry in the coastal town of Lumlee, Sierra Leone.

A blister puffs out from a child’s hand after a day of mining rocks from the local rock quarry.

A boy sifts through piles of different sized rocks at a rock quarry in the coastal town of Lumlee, SIerra Leone.

A girl walks past a a home being constructed with the very rocks she carries on her head in the small coastal town of Lumlee, Sierra Leone.

A small girls walks through the rock quarry that she and her family call home. Every day, seven days a week, the family wakes up and goes to work in the quarry.

A man smashes rock from the hillside in the coastal town of Lumlee, Sierra Leone. Rocks are heated up with fire for three hours and rapidly cooled and shattered in to smaller pieces to be mined and crushed for construction use.

Children lead the way from the hillside rock mining back to the village. These children have been born in to this life. Their parents ended up in the area after fleeing the brutal civil war that ravaged much of the country from 1992-2002. They don’t enough money to travel back to their villages that were destroyed during the war.

The newest edition to the family. A toddler cries while trying to nap on the family’s one bed as his new foster brother tries to calm him. The toddler’s mother died while mining rocks in the quarry. She had strep and died from complications only days before.

Abi is the new mother of this child. The toddler’s mother died from strep while toiling in the rock quarry only weeks prior. Abi and her husband already have two children and care for Abi’s mother. The family makes their income from the rock quarry but have spared their children from the work. They have enrolled the children in the BorBor Charity School and work extra hours to make up for the lost income that the children use to bring home.

Foday Mansaray is by all accounts a saint. He returned to the very village he started out working in as a child with a college degree and a calling to help the children who will be the future of Sierra Leone.

Those interested can send money via Western Union to: the Borbor Pain Charity School Of Hope or Foday Mansaray at 40 Main Peninsular Road, Adonkia/Angola, Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa. Mansaray’s cell phone number is :00 232 76 69 89 79. Email wire details and test question to Mansaray at borborpaincharity@yahoo.com.

(Borbor Pain Charity School of Hope can also be found on Facebook.)