Book:Education in the Muslim World

This book is a general one but there is one chapter

Colin Brock, James Dada & Tida Jata. Selected Perspectives on Education in West Africa, with Special Reference to the Gambia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria

which is relevant to African interests

Source: SYMPOSIUM BOOKS
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Education in the Muslim World

different perspectives

Edited by ROSARII GRIFFIN

2006 paperback 344 pages US$56.00
ISBN 978-1-873927-55-7

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This collection of articles is an eclectic selection of studies of a range of educational situations relating to Muslim populations in different parts of the world. It is intended as a selection and in no way contains any overarching theme, other than illustrating the wide diversity of situations and issues relating to education in Muslim societies. The contributors provide a wide and fascinating range of insights and problems, many of which apply to other communities as well; there is much to be shared and celebrated between ‘east’ and ‘west’, but only with greater understanding. It is hoped this book will contribute something towards that understanding.

Colin Brock, James Dada & Tida Jatta. Selected Perspectives on Education in West Africa, with Special Reference to the Gambia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria

Sierra Leone: UNICEF Executive Director sees progress and challenges in West Africa

Source: UNICEF

Executive Director sees progress and challenges in West Africa

During a three-day trip to Sierra Leone at the end of February, UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said stability was bringing progress for the country’s children after a decade of conflict. Ms. Veneman also travelled to Liberia, which is recovering from the effects of its own civil war and, like Sierra Leone, still faces major challenges to child health and development. More…

Profile: Sierra Leone’s slum medic

Source: BBC NEWS

I’m posting this BBC profile in full because I want you to read it!  Please don’t think that this situation is untypical and just exists in slum areas. I have seen clinics like this in several countries. The lack of even basic equipment, drugs and a continuous fight for cleanliness is common.

Profile: Sierra Leone’s slum medic

Adama Gondor will be keeping a regular diary for the BBC News website about running a clinic in a coastal slum of Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. Here she discusses the challenges she faces in Kroo Bay, where shanty houses have been built on a rubbish dump on the banks of the Crocodile River.

Adama Gondor (l) says Kroo Bay is one of the toughest places to live

It’s extremely difficult to run an efficient clinic here in Kroo Bay.

I am the Community Health Officer (CHO) at Kroo Bay clinic. A CHO is a paramedic who works in Sierra Leone’s community health clinics as the head of the clinic.

Since I took over last October I haven’t had the supply of drugs that I need.

Kroo Bay is one of the toughest places to live in the world and most of the patients I treat are ill because they lack the very basic medical requirements and drugs.

We can’t sterilise anything here and we have nothing to dress wounds with In pictures: Life in Kroo Bay

The biggest health problems for children in this community are diarrhoea, respiratory diseases - such as pneumonia and coughs - worm infestation and also malaria.

We try and make the most of the drugs we have but often patients go to drug peddlers instead.

I am trained in raising the health of communities and I am really excited to be here and trying to make a difference.

But when I first arrived I was a bit worried when I saw the community and the environment here.

Dirt and smells

Pregnancy can cause many problems for us in Kroo Bay as most people deliver their babies at home.

The clinic is also used as a meeting place and school

We encourage them to come to the clinic, but they don’t, then if anything goes wrong during delivery they rush to bring them here.

We don’t have a delivery kit at the clinic; the nurse brings her own personal one for deliveries.

We can’t sterilise anything here and we have nothing to dress wounds with.

In the clinic we don’t even have equipment for minor surgery.

And the clinic is dirty - we have to clean the dust away several times a day, and often we have the most awful smells.

The community uses the clinic for other purposes - for meetings and for a school - but this is a clinic.

The toilet facilities are very poor; there are cracks all over the building; the cupboards are broken; rats come inside; we don’t have enough locks and people have stolen the window glass.

In terms of equipment we have hardly anything at all.

This is a clinic in only the most basic of terms.

Save the Children has launched an interactive website where Kroo Bay residents answer questions about their lives.

African report: the role community radio stations (CRS) can play in poverty alleviation

Source: The Drum Beat 424

INFORMO(T)RAC Programme - Joint Review Mission Report
by Roy Kessler and Martin Faye
This evaluation report explores the role community radio stations (CRS) can play in poverty alleviation by sparking dialogue about social issues. The authors of this piece find that in 3 West African countries - Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone - CRS has contributed to civil society development and, thus, indirectly, to economic development, especially in societies that have been impacted by conflict.
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/71180

CONF: 26-28 Sept. 2008 ‘Empire, Slave Trade & Slavery: Rebuilding Civil Society in Sierra Leone’

Seen on H-Net list for African History and Culture

26-28 September 2008.

Empire, Slave Trade and Slavery: Rebuilding Civil Society in Sierra Leone / Past and Present An International Interdisciplinary Conference to be held at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull.

This conference
will mark the bicentenary of the establishment of Sierra Leone as a British Crown colony in 1808.

Sponsors: Liverpool Hope University, The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples (York University), Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, (University of Hull). [In 1808, two hundred years ago, Sierra Leone became a British Crown colony. The bicentennial presents the opportunity to re-examine the history of Sierra Leone. The conference will bring together academics from different disciplines, museum professionals, archivists, policy makers concerned with contemporary issues, and individuals interested in human rights and the reconstruction of modern day Sierra Leone.

British influence in Sierra Leone is long standing and took a variety of forms in the transition from slavery to civil society from the eighteenth century to the present day. This part of West Africa was not only a slave supply region on the upper Guinea Coast but also the location for a number of abolitionist experiments in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Leading British abolitionists, including Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, regarded Sierra Leone as a Province of Freedom that would transform Africa. It was hoped that the utopian vision of a settlement governed by former slaves would demonstrate African capacity for cultural, moral and economic improvement. To that end, the aims of the Sierra Leone Company, incorporated in 1791, were the destruction of the slave trade and the regeneration of Africa. The development of Freetown in a slave trading region was a bold and ambitious experiment in the implementation of morality and abolitionist economics. Although the Company aimed to develop legitimate forms of trade as alternatives to the transatlantic slave trade, it failed to achieve its aims, and in 1808 the settlement was formally transferred to the British Crown. Sierra Leone experienced a number of phases of resettlement by people of African descent. In 1792 over 1,100 former slaves from Nova Scotia resettled in Freetown with the intention of making their children free and happy, and some 550 Maroons from Jamaica arrived in Sierra Leone in 1800. After 1807, anti-slavery squadrons disembarked tens of thousands of recaptives from various parts of West Africa at Freetown. These immigrant groups constituted a great mixture of Africans & [who] had to rebuild identities and communities in an alien land controlled by Europeans, as David Northrup has recognized. Through their missionary and commercial endeavours, the recaptives also influenced economic, social, and religious development in other areas of West Africa.

This conference offers scope to examine the legacies of slavery, abolition, and colonial rule in Sierra Leone. The conference will explore British interaction with indigenous groups, the influence of European administrators on economic and cultural policy, and the activities of immigrants in establishing a unique cultural, religious and social identity. Moreover, the legacy of this past will be explored in the context of the long history of colonial rule in Sierra Leone and the subsequent difficulties of establishing a civil society in the post-colonial era.

The Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation is a particularly appropriate venue for the conference because Freetown, Sierra Leone, and the City of Hull have been twin cities since 1980. The visit of former P.M. Tony Blair to Sierra Leone in May 2007 highlighted the ongoing links between Britain and Sierra Leone and the difficulties of reconstructing civil society in the aftermath of brutal civil war.

With the return to peace in 2002, Britain agreed to provide development aid to rebuild Sierra Leone, which had become one of the worlds poorest countries. Hence, the conference will focus on the reconstruction of civil society, both in the context of slavery and abolition and in the context of civil war and its aftermath. In recognition of the historic reasons that Hull and Freetown have been twin cities, the conference will provide a forum to discuss past and present issues of social justice and civil development.

Please submit proposals for papers, including title and abstract, to Jane Ellison, Conference Manager, WISE j.ellison@hull.ac.uk, by 1 December 2007. All participants will be required to pay a registration fee and to arrange their own accommodation and travel. Information on local hotel accommodation can be arranged through the City of Hull tourist bureau; details to be supplied upon registration.

An edited collection of papers presented at the conference will be published. Direct all correspondence to: Jane Ellison / Conference Manager / WISE (Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation) University of Hull. Oriel Chambers / 27 High Street / Hull, HU1 1NE / Fax:
01482 305184. Email: j.ellison@hull.ac.uk
http://www.hull.ac.uk/wise
http://www.yorku.ca/tubman/Events/Conferences/Hull2007/index.html

SIERRA LEONE: Youth Employment

The following article is from IRIN NEWS

SIERRA LEONE: “An idle mind is a devil’s workshop”

FREETOWN, 26 April (IRIN) - With tens of thousands of youths still out of work more than five years after the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war, many say that prospects for employment will be what they demand of the new leaders they are to elect in July.

In the capital, Freetown, young men loiter on street corners, in bars and in front of televisions in cafes. Many of them are former fighters.

“They are largely illiterate school dropouts seeking a living from petty trading, narcotic drug peddling, prostitution and theft,” according to a policy document on youth activities by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. It said the majority of the idle youths fled their communities during the war and gravitated to cities such as Freetown on the coast, and Bo and Kenema in the east.

The United Nations estimates unemployment to be about 65 percent in Sierra Leone. Human rights groups have warned about the potential for unemployed youths in Sierra Leone, as well as in neighbouring Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea, to be drawn into conflict. All of those nations have experienced civil war or social upheaval in the past decade.

“Current levels of unemployment among young men and women in West Africa are a ticking time bomb for the region and beyond,” according to “Youth Unemployment and Regional Insecurity in West Africa,” a report published in 2006 by the United Nations Office for West Africa (UNOWA).

“This is not just a social disaster and a huge wasted economic asset,” the report said. “Ever-rising joblessness among youths and the desperation that accompanies it undermines the possibility of progress in those countries in the region that are emerging from conflict.”

The report said that until the situation changes, the likelihood of having genuine peace, security and development in West Africa remains small. The general and presidential elections scheduled for 28 July will be the second elections held since the end of the decade-long civil war. The poll is widely regarded as a test for the country’s peacebuilding efforts.

Scraping by

Although most youths lack jobs, some former fighters in Freetown manage to earn a little money by pushing wheelbarrows made of scrap wood, called ‘omolanke’, to help traders transport their commodities.

“Things are not well for us young people in Sierra Leone,” said 19-year-old Mohammed Kombay. When asked, few of the youths interviewed in Freetown would admit to being a former combatant.

“Most of us earn the highest amount of 10,000 Leones [about US$3]. This is very small for us when we take into consideration the high cost of living in Freetown,” Kombay said.

Patricia Sowa, who is in her 20s, sells cigarettes and candy out of a wooden box. “The youth of this country need opportunities where we can work and earn at least something that would help sustain us,” she said.

“Things are tough on us, and as for me I refused to join my friends in the streets to prostitute, because it is risky venture,” she said. “Even this cigarette business, things are not moving smoothly. I hardly make money.”

Looking ahead

The Sierra Leonean government and the UN agree that addressing youth unemployment is key to consolidating peace in the country.

“Together with international partners, the Sierra Leonean government and the UN have agreed that there is a need to provide gainful employment for these youths… We have identified them as a major factor for peacebuilding,” Carolyn McAskie, UN assistant secretary-general for Peacebuilding Support, told IRIN.

“One of the big issues of the Peacebuilding Commission is finding short and longer term solutions to these problems,” she said.

For its part, the Youth and Sports Ministry has launched its Youth Employment Scheme (YES) to hire youths for nationwide roadside clean-up operations.

“The key challenge facing this country after the war is the productive engagement of our young people. failure to engage in productive activities might compromise the gains in making the country peaceful and stable,” said Dennis Bright, youth and sports minister.

He said there are currently 9,000 youths hired under YES and the government hopes to take on an additional 5,000 youths.

“This YES program is helping us to gain some money that can address some of our weekly family needs,” said Kanja Sillah, a 20 year-old former fighter. “But our concern is whether we will still have some permanent jobs to do, because an idle mind is a devil’s workshop.”

Sierra Leone: Children’s forum takes on trafficking and other concerns

The following article was seen on The Development Gateway

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do?itemId=1096191

Sierra Leone: Children’s forum takes on trafficking and other concerns - UNICEF

MAKENI, Sierra Leone, 6 March 2006 – In the impoverished town of Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, teenagers recently engaged in a lively discussion with the UNICEF Representative for Sierra Leone and the Chairman of the local District Council. Topping the agenda: the issue of child trafficking. The meeting was the second in a series organized by the Children’s Forum Network (CFN) and the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs. It was chaired by 17-year-old Fatima Turay, who voiced her concern about the menace posed by child trafficking in the midst of the region’s dire poverty. “Usually parents, especially those in the rural areas, are lured to give away their children under false promises of a better life and education in the towns and cities,” said Fatima. “Unfortunately, these children end up being used as street hawkers, domestic slaves and prostitutes by their so-called benefactors.” Fatima called on authorities to give priority to protecting children through, among other measures, passage of a Child Rights Bill that would enable advocacy groups such as CFN to seek redress for these abuses. The Children’s Forum Network meeting, chaired by 17-year-old Fatima Turay, focused on the issue of child trafficking. Reports of trafficking have increased since the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war in 2002. Child trafficking in Sierra Leone has become a more significant and complex problem since the decade-long civil war, which ended in 2002, left thousands of children displaced, separated from their families and orphaned. The country is a source for both internal trafficking of children (from rural to urban areas) and trafficking abroad. The victims of child trafficking are both males and females of varying ages. Trafficking occurs for a range of purposes, including sexual exploitation (such as prostitution and early marriage) and forced labour (in domestic work, mining, fishing, trading and vending, and agriculture). Children are also trafficked into begging, petty crime and adoption. While there are no concrete numbers on how many children have been trafficked in Sierra Leone, media reports of trafficking cases have been persistent in recent years. The victims of child trafficking are both males and females of varying ages. Trafficking occurs for a range of purposes, including sexual exploitation (such as prostitution and early marriage) and forced labour (in domestic work, mining, fishing, trading and vending, and agriculture). Children are also trafficked into begging, petty crime and adoption. While there are no concrete numbers on how many children have been trafficked in Sierra Leone, media reports of trafficking cases have been persistent in recent years.

View full text ››

Sierra Leone: Children’s forum takes on trafficking and other concerns

The following article was seen on The Development Gateway

http://topics.developmentgateway.org/gender/rc/ItemDetail.do?itemId=1096191

Sierra Leone: Children’s forum takes on trafficking and other concerns - UNICEF

MAKENI, Sierra Leone, 6 March 2006 – In the impoverished town of Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, teenagers recently engaged in a lively discussion with the UNICEF Representative for Sierra Leone and the Chairman of the local District Council. Topping the agenda: the issue of child trafficking. The meeting was the second in a series organized by the Children’s Forum Network (CFN) and the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs. It was chaired by 17-year-old Fatima Turay, who voiced her concern about the menace posed by child trafficking in the midst of the region’s dire poverty. “Usually parents, especially those in the rural areas, are lured to give away their children under false promises of a better life and education in the towns and cities,” said Fatima. “Unfortunately, these children end up being used as street hawkers, domestic slaves and prostitutes by their so-called benefactors.” Fatima called on authorities to give priority to protecting children through, among other measures, passage of a Child Rights Bill that would enable advocacy groups such as CFN to seek redress for these abuses. The Children’s Forum Network meeting, chaired by 17-year-old Fatima Turay, focused on the issue of child trafficking. Reports of trafficking have increased since the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war in 2002. Child trafficking in Sierra Leone has become a more significant and complex problem since the decade-long civil war, which ended in 2002, left thousands of children displaced, separated from their families and orphaned. The country is a source for both internal trafficking of children (from rural to urban areas) and trafficking abroad. The victims of child trafficking are both males and females of varying ages. Trafficking occurs for a range of purposes, including sexual exploitation (such as prostitution and early marriage) and forced labour (in domestic work, mining, fishing, trading and vending, and agriculture). Children are also trafficked into begging, petty crime and adoption. While there are no concrete numbers on how many children have been trafficked in Sierra Leone, media reports of trafficking cases have been persistent in recent years. The victims of child trafficking are both males and females of varying ages. Trafficking occurs for a range of purposes, including sexual exploitation (such as prostitution and early marriage) and forced labour (in domestic work, mining, fishing, trading and vending, and agriculture). Children are also trafficked into begging, petty crime and adoption. While there are no concrete numbers on how many children have been trafficked in Sierra Leone, media reports of trafficking cases have been persistent in recent years.

View full text ››

African amputees’ cup kicks off

From BBC NEWS

 

African amputees’ cup kicks off

Sierra Leonean amputees play football on the beach Enlarge Image

Africa’s first amputee football cup has started in Sierra Leone, with the hosts beating Ghana 3-0 in the opening match. Each of the five teams has six one-legged outfield players and a one-armed goalkeeper in the tournament, which is being sponsored by Fifa.

Many of the players taking part lost limbs during long-running civil wars in their countries.

Thousands of people had their arms or legs hacked off by rebels during Sierra Leone’s conflict, which ended in 2002.

The BBC’s Piers Edwards in Freetown says amputees can often be seen playing football along the beach near the capital.

Pride

Some 10,000 people watched the opening game between Sierra Leone and Ghana at the National Stadium in Freetown.

Sierra Leone coach Mose Mambu, whose brother lost a limb in the war, said before the match that he was confident his team would make the country proud.

I have confidence in my boys, although Nigeria has professional players Mose Mambu Sierra Leone team coach

“Our two-legged people are failures long since, we want to bring football back to life through these amputees,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

Our correspondent says Sierra Leone has not been known for its footballing prowess and has only qualified for the African Nations Cup twice in its 50-year history.

“I have confidence in my boys, although Nigeria has professional players… we have the technical capability and we are the hosts,” Mr Mambu said.

Sierra Leone had been scheduled to play Nigeria in the first game, but the Nigerian players are still on the road.

They have been driving all the way from Lagos and the trip will have taken them three days and three nights, our correspondent says.

The other teams taking part in the All-African Amputee Football Championship are Angola and Liberia.

Despite the end of Angola’s long civil war, land-mines remain a serious problem there, with people going to their fields often losing limbs.

The winner of the competition will qualify for the Amputee World Football Championship taking place in Turkey later this year.

Sierra Leone came third in the 2005 World Cup.

PARIS CLUB CANCELS SIERRA LEONE DEBT

From The Tocqueville Connection

PARIS CLUB CANCELS SIERRA LEONE DEBT
Received Wednesday, 24 January 2007 17:23:00 GMT

PARIS, Jan 24, 2007 (AFP) - The Paris Club agreed Wednesday to cancel the entire remaining debt of Sierra Leone, the group of creditor nations said Wednesday.
“As a contribution to restoring Sierra Leone’s debt sustainability, they decided to cancel first 218 million dollars (170 million euros), that is to say 91 percent of the debt stock at end 2006,” the club said in a statement.
It added that a decision by some creditors to grant additional debt relief of 22 million dollars meant that the debt of the impoverished west African country’s debt “will be entirely cancelled.”
The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank announced late last year that Sierra Leone, which endured 10 years of brutal civil war between 1991 and 2001, was entitled to benefit from the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative as well as the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative plan.
The country’s finance minister said the debt cancellation would amount to 1.6 billion dollars, which would be over 90 percent of the debt stock of about 1.7 billion dollars.
Sierra Leone is rich in diamonds, but rendered poor by conflict and sits in 176th place, one from the bottom, on the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index for 2006.
The Paris Club, formed in 1956, is an informal group of creditor countries that convenes each month in Paris with debtor countries to discuss a restructuring of obligations.