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Published: February 4th 2013
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The name Sierra Leone is originally Portuguese, meaning Lioness Mountains. Although I knew this and I knew that Freetown was on a peninsula I hadn’t expected to see the city rise out of the ocean in quite such a dramatic way. Our flight arrived at Lungi airport early in the morning and from there we travelled over to Freetown via boat allowing for good views of the green hills scattered with buildings.
My first impression of Sierra Leone was that it reminded me a lot of Uganda. Red roads, vivid green trees, small stalls lining the streets selling anything and everything - just a little more chaotic. There are a few tarmac roads around the capitol but there are many more rough dirt roads scattered with potholes and completely uneven. Thankfully I travelled over with colleagues so there was no need for me to do any planning or navigating so I could just sit back and take it all in. The first couple of days in Freetown were spent meeting local organisations, NGOs and government people that we will be working with or who are interested in the work that we’re doing. In typical African style at most of
these meetings the person we had made arrangements with was either late or didn’t turn up, but somehow everything still works out in the end.
The drive from Freetown to Kenema takes about 4 ½ hours and the route travels through towns, villages, mangroves, forest covered hills and open plains. This was a great opportunity to get a general feel for the countryside and as the road is good for the majority of the journey I was able to relax and watch the world go by.
I plan to stay in Kenema for six months volunteering with Gola Rainforest National Park (GRNP) supporting their environmental education work. One of the partners of GRNP is The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) which is how I have come to be here as I worked on an RSPB project in South Essex for almost 3 years. Following the end of my contract I decided I wanted to develop my international experience and share the skills and knowledge I had learnt so I made arrangements to come to Sierra Leone. GRNP covers an area of about 75,000 ha and has a high biodiversity of plants and animals most of which are endemic to the Upper Guinea region. The overall goal of this programme is to protect Gola Rainforest National Park with the prime objective of supporting the local communities around the forest.
Community development work such as building hospitals and schools have been supported by the project in forest edge communities for a number of years, but to date very little environmental education work has taken place due to limited staffing and stretched resources. Over the next six months we hope to establish nature clubs in schools in close proximity to the forest. We also plan to conduct a roadshow around the local community using art and drama to show the local people the importance of their natural heritage. Along the way I’m sure there will be a number of smaller projects as well but that’s what we’re focussing on at the moment.
I have now finished my first full week in the office and we are already making some progress which is great. GRNP has recently appointed an Education Officer – Eddie – who I will be working with and he’s already got contacts in 35 schools that are interested in setting up nature clubs. We started the week by trying to define the key messages that we are trying to get across to the communities which will be used by the whole GRNP team. Following that we set out our Annual Operation Plan and since then I’ve been working to create a teacher’s guide for setting up and running a nature club.
The team here have all been very friendly, both ex-pats and Sierra Leoneans alike so I’ve been made to feel very welcome. We regularly go out for drinks and dinner after work and as Kenema is small you always seem to bump into people that you know....once you know people that is. Last weekend I did a bit of exploring away from the centre of Kenema and walked out towards the hills that I can see from my flat, on my way I passed a number of groups of people most of which wanted to call out to say hello. One of these groups was listening to football on the radio and guess what match it was....Macclesfield Town! A little reminder of home even though I may be far away.
Before I left for Sierra Leone many people were a little surprised that I was coming here as the most recent news that people know about was the civil war that lasted for just over 10 years. It certainly was a horrific war and the country still has its scars but the people here are positive and doing there best to improve their way of life. It is now illegal to carry a gun and some people have already spoken to me about the war saying that the people of Sierra Leone have seen enough violence; they want to be peaceful people. Life here isn’t easy but as long as I can adapt I’ll enjoy it and as long as I’m sensible I’ll be safe.
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