Health Care - Mothers to be and common problems.

Over the Christmas period I have been reading through the modular approach to Community Health Care that the team will be using on our visit to Freetown in March. I would like to thank 'Andrew' for the recent comment he made on the health care post dated 21 November, pointing our attention to an advert for the services offered by a native doctor in Mile 91, a Northern town which is 91 miles from Freetown and a major road junction. So many of these are covered in the manual and may come up as something that people want to talk about. Maybe a bit too graphic for a roadside display in the UK!

Christmas and babies go together, and it is of real concern that in Sierra Leone 1 in 8 women die in childbirth. In the developed world the figure is 1 in 4000. The film below points out that everyone in the country knows someone who has died in childbirth. Help and advice in this area could be a major topic when our team comes to do the needs assessment.

The film tends to suggest that the answer is more money going into the Health Service. This is on the macro development end of the scale, where governments or large businesses give aid. . We shall be working at the micro development end. This is good.  Both sides of the partnership know each other and have built up a good relationship over the years. Local church is rooted in the community and has access to the poorest in society. With trust already there a structure of accountability is easy to establish and maintain.. Church culture should encourage honesty, openness and thought and concern for others. So we are not going to give money, but to share our knowledge, our time and concern. It can change a lot.

Christmas Greetings

Christmas is here again, and what a mixed bag it can be.   We have a small amount of snow and our transport system is in chaos.

However there is good news!  This Christmas Eve it is reported that "British researchers have devised what they say is a guaranteed method of pulling crackers, to avoid disappoint at the dinner table this Christmas.   Diners are guaranteed success if they follow the formula O=11xC/L+5xQ which is based on the angle, grip and quality of the cracker".   I won't explain what O C/L and Q stand for. I am just going to enjoy the food and the company and if some else gets the present in the cracker, good for them!

Do we go a bit overboard at Christmas?  Having grown up and lived in the UK, it is part of our culture. I was talking to a lady who has lived in Asia for 20 years, and enjoyed a different culture. For her, Christmas was a time for sharing the good news about Jesus Christ - free from the commercial pressures of the West.

I enjoy much of Christmas, the getting together of family and friends, the food, the colour and bright lights. But present giving gets a bit much. What do you give people who have everything they need?  Not that this applies to the younger members!  Many people do give to charities at Christmas, realising that there are people who most certainly don't have everything they need.

Research for Superdrug reveals that  "The average family of four will spend a whopping £1,695 on Christmas this year.

Presents alone will cost a total of £606 while a staggering £321 will be spent on food and drinks.





People will shell out £125 on decorations for the home, Christmas tree, garden and dinner tables and a further £22 on cards, wrapping paper and postage.  Christmas parties will also cost a small fortune - including £130 on new party outfits, £32 on party accessories such as handbags and jewellery, £15 on make-up and £15.08 on perfume or aftershave."


Phew!  Fortunately our spending is nowhere near the average family. But I can't help thinking of what could be done with £1,700 in Sierra Leone, and in many other places too.  However, as St. Paul reminds us, "If I give all I possess to the poor.....but have not love, I gain nothing".   Men and women need more than money, we all need to know the depth of the love of God to be fully human and to become children of God. That is why a baby came at Christmas. Jesus came to show us the love and power of God - in a person.

John Wesley, the 18th century evangelist and Father of Methodism, taught that people could be perfected in love towards God and their fellow men in this life through their faith in Jesus. Far from producing an inward looking group of people in a "holy huddle", this exploded into a movement that produced missionaries, schools, orphanages, the first trade unions and support for many social campaigns, such as the ending of the slave trade.

So that is what Christmas is about to me. A man coming to show us God, so that we might be changed and into what? To "reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the full measure of the fulness of Christ". (Eph.4.13).  What a calling!  It's a big one.

Think of it in terms that Nelson Mandela used in his inauguration speech.    "Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be?"    We are called to be the city set on a hill that all can see!

Orientation Day - a challenging time.

On Thursday, 3rd December, fourteen people met at the Riverside Centre in Derby for the day that would show us  how to teach elementary health care principles to a less developed nation. John and Linden Boothby, and their friend Janet, were from Links International and were leading us for the day. They had travelled up that morning from Sussex.  Eight people were from Community Church Derby, and three were from other churches.

Our visit will be during the first week in March, but to encourage us to expect great things, here are excepts from a report of their recent trip to Malawi.

Janet teaching a group recently in Malawi. It was emphasized to us that the programme is based on discussion rather than the teacher standing at the front.

A participant in Malawi wrote, ‘The workshop was an eye opener. We discovered that we can influence our community to follow preventive measures against most of our killer diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, dysentery just to mention a few. As we were discussing we recognised the need of concentrating on sanitation in our community, and we agreed that sanitation will be our starting point. Our mind set has completely changed towards our community. When we were coming back on the 2 hour drive, we kept on discussing how we can implement the healthy tips that we learnt from the workshop. The fact that we have a role to play in our community cannot be emphasised enough. This workshop was worth attending!’

In Derby, Linden emphasied getting the Local Chiefs on board.  The Malawi report quotes Chief Chapsinja who wrote, ‘The training was timely. I will ensure that my community is practicing good health practices. In our country Chiefs are keys to the community, that is why I personally attended the training. I am convinced that the training is good so I will personally teach my fellow chiefs in their monthly meeting and work closely with the Village Development Committee to ensure that what we have learnt is being put into practice. I want my village to be a model village.’

We already have a good relationship with the Chief in Looking Town. I hope he will attend. In the photo below he is presenting me with the traditional welcome gift of Kola nuts and  water.

Behind us is the Rev. Samuel Kargbo, Alpha's brother, who is a Baptist Minister and very involved in the over-sight of the programme.

Kola Nuts

I was not expecting the gift and was not sure what he was giving me. We shared the nuts later and I am told that in Africa it is a symbol of peace, friendship, and hospitality, a bit like the Indian peace pipe. We are looking forward to the visit in March. Alpha has also promised me that we shall be treated to one of the high-lights of their year - the School Sports Day.

Healthcare Visit to Sierra Leone in March 2010. Latest.

There is still time to think about going. If you read some of the stories of the orphans in the post below, you will see why health care is a critical issue.  To read all the details about this visit, please click on green health care label below.

Community Healthcare - Update 3

The team is coming together well, but places are still available. There could be a need for able-bodied people willing to help with building work. On the healthcare side this would probably involve assisting in building pit latrines, depending on the assessment of needs when the team is in Looking Town.

The Orientation Day, which anyone hoping to go is asked to attend if at all possible, will be from 9.45 am to 4.00 pm on Thursday, 3rd December, at the Riverside Centre, Derby. If you wish to attend please contact tswindaleuk@yahoo.co.uk

To see all the posts on Healthcare together, click on green health care label.

Want to know what Sierra Leone is really like? Watch this.

Having visited the country on six occasions and travelled to Bo, Kenema and Makeni, and into the villages - as well as Freetown and the Western Peninsula, I would say this gives a great impression of the transport, roads, shops, markets, homes, the beauty of the countryside and the friendly people. I loved it!

High days and holidays

In the life of the school some days have a special appeal. I was present for some of them and a lot of work is put in to make a great day for all concerned.

Sports Day

First off is the school Sports Day, which usually takes place in March.

The school's houses are lined up for competition

Obstacle Race

Carrying the Baby

The eating competition

A fine group of sportsmen and women

Thanksgiving Day

After a formal service in church, the school marches through the community, accompanied by a band. Members of the team of 2005 are on one of the photographs

We have arrived back at base!

Field Trip

This was a most impressive occasion, and the staff took the opportunity to show the children a number of modern aspects of Sierra Leone.  We travelled by bus to the new exhibition centre in Freetown where the boys and girls looked over the equipment that was for sale.  We also visited Hastings Airport where we were permitted to board a plane used by the Red Cross. Photographs were not permitted there!

Inspecting generators at the Exhibition Hall

The Day of the African Child, 16th June every year.

In Soweto, South Africa, thousands of black school children took to the streets in 1976, in a march more than half a mile long, to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot down; and in the two weeks of protest that followed, more than a hundred people were killed and more than a thousand were injured.

To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of all those who marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the Organization of African Unity. The Day also draws attention to the lives of African children today.

The day is celebrated with music, dancing, food and maybe a film.

Sir David Frost interviews the President, His Excellency Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma

Ernest Bai Koroma, a former insurance broker, won the presidential election in 2007. He now faces the daunting task of reviving Sierra Leone's fortunes after years of corruption, economic mismanagement and violence.

His Excellency will be in London for a Conference on the 18th and 19th November 2009 where, together with such worthies as the Minister for International Development and the World Bank Vice-President for Africa, they will be looking at the Government of Sierra Leone's 'Agenda for Change', - a poverty reduction strategy, and also Trade and Investment opportunities.

More on the Healthcare Visit Update 2

There has been much interest in this opportunity to give real input into the healthcare of a very poor community.
Currently 2 GPs, 2 nurses, two students on health related courses and one young lady with previous experience in West Africa have expressed an interest in coming on the visit in March.

The orientation day is likely to be on Thursday 3rd December, and participants will  get full details very soon.

This initiative comes at a critical time in Sierra Leone's attempts to improve its healthcare provison.

The President has just sacked the Health Minister.  Full story below from the BBC dated 4 November 2009.

The President, Ernest Bai Koroma

Sierra Leone's president has sacked two of his ministers, one of whom has been indicted for corruption.

Health Minister Sheku Tijan Koroma appeared in court on Wednesday charged with illegally awarding contracts.
He is the first minister to be charged with corruption since President Ernest Bai Koroma came to power two years ago.

No reason was given for the dismissal of the other official, Leonard Balogun Koroma, who is minister in the vice-president's office.
Mr Koroma promised to crack down on corruption when he won elections in 2007

A few weeks previously the Health Ministry had started the closure of 44 illegal and unregistered clinics, one of which is in the vicinity of the Looking Town Schools and township.  This has led to the local fear that the provision of health facilities is becoming much worse, rather than better.

There is still the chance to be part of this trip and you do not need to have a healthcare background, only an interest in the topic.  Please e-mail tswindaleuk@yahoo.co.uk to register an interest.

New Building - The Urgent need!

The plan for the new building, which is to house an admin centre including a library, and classrooms which will be used for the Secondary School and, out of school hours, the vocational studies students.

Desperately needed because

Due to the good academic and moral ethos of the school many parents want their children to go. The Staff see the need and want to help. Extra space is urgently needed.

The Primary and Secondary Schools, using the same building on a rota system, creates a difficult situation which does not help learning.Vocational studies students have nowhere to go during the rainy season when they cannot work outside.

There is no other Vocational Training Centre in the area, which is one of the poorest and depressed in Freetown.

Primary occupations are gardening, charcoal burning and collecting firewood none of which generate a steady income. Most houses in Looking Town have leaking roofs and poor or no toilet facilities.

Many parents are poverty stricken. Many families have only one meal a day. Their children become the breadwinners and are exposed to moral and physical danger. For economic reasons many young girls are forced into either an early marriage or prostitution.

Schooling and vocational training give hope and are essential to lift people out of poverty.

Some pictures of vocational students at work

Vocational students are doing fine in the sun, rain is a different matter.

Sewing machines outside - impossible if it is wet!

Carpentry training. Making desks and benches for the school

Phase One the Foundations is already done.

This is the present state of the building work

Phase Two    The Super structure, the walls, supporting columns and beams is costed at £1655.

Phase Three   Roofing is estimated to cost  £1982.

Phase Four     Completion - finishing and plastering, the ceiling, windows and doors, and painting at a cost of £6461.

Total cost is just over £10,000

The season for building, the dry season is starting around the end of November and continues to late May.  When the team goes out in March it would be great to see it all taking shape.

Anyone wishing to give a donation (which can now be gift aided) or to help in fund-raising please contact us. details below.

Any Able Bodied Men who would like to come to either help with physical work in the healthcare sector, e.g. building pit latrines, if this is identified as a need, or with the new school building, would be most welcome.

Further details from tswindaleuk@yahoo.co.uk  or on 0800 9707571

Moving on (1)

I have found this clip from Bill Johnson very challenging. Some readers may never have heard anything like it, but followers of Jesus Christ are pushing back the darkness that still covers the earth. This may involve building schools and hospitals, ensuring the best care for orphans, and seeking jobs and an income for all. It involves seeking a safe and healthy environment in which to live. But is there more to life than that?

Could what Bill Johnson describes as happening in Mozambique happen elsewhere?
Sierra Leone, the UK, Germany, United States, Canada?

Community Healthcare Visit - Update 1

We have had a number of very positive enquiries about this trip and hope to arrange a date for the Orientation Day (likely to be a weekday) shortly.

Suggested Dates  28 February - 6th or 8th March

Flight  - Freetown Flyer from Heathrow operated by BMI

Accommodation.  Likely to be the hotel used by the last team to visit, a good standard and very near to the community we are working with.  The hotel 5/10 is owned by the Teachers' Union in Sierra Leone and built in co-operation with a charity started by a Sierra Leonean in Denmark.  It is called 5/10 because the 5th October is World Teachers Day.

Hotel 5/10

Hotel Dining Room

Cost:  Up to £1,000 in total, including flight, accommodation, transport, meals, purchases and gifts you may wish to give towards individuals. 

Medical matters.  Please consult your GP about vaccinations and anti-malaria tablets.  For Sierra Leone, courses or boosters usually advised are: diphtheria; tetanus; poliomyelitis; hepatitis A; typhoid; yellow fever.

Please see the first article, Community Healthcare in Freetown, for details of this visit.

Ghost Schools - a problem for us too!

We have reached a milestone with the Primary School.  After a school has been running for three years it  becomes eligible to apply for financial support from the government. But, as Alpha has said in the past on a number of occasions, "This is a problem we are having here".  The problem this time - corruption.  The Ministry of Education was under investigation.

One of the New Era Primary School pupils

Lansana Fofana,  writing from Freetown in September 2009, has the story.
 'Magnus Kamara is a school inspector with a difference. He has been hired to find schools that don't exist.
"It has been a shocking experience. In some of the towns and villages we visited, there were neither school structures nor genuine teachers, but the government was paying salaries and subsidies to them, on a monthly basis."

The Education Minister, Minkailu Bah, has moved swiftly to end the fraud.  "This syndicate works because staff of my ministry, including supervisors and education secretaries, connive with officials from the accountant general's office, to carry out the act," Bah adds.'

After investigation, the Department is up and running again and if all goes to plan, the teachers' salaries in the Primary School will be paid by the government from January next year.        This will allow our finances to strengthen the Secondary School and further developments.

To read Lansana Fofana's article on "Ghost Schools" go to  http://allafrica.com/stories/200905080007.html

Community Healthcare in Freetown - Join us!

If you live in the United Kingdom it is easy to take the National Health Service for granted.  We have three children in their twenties and late teens. Two of them have needed medical help. One to survive being born eleven weeks premature and another to overcome a cleft lip and palate. Probably neither would have come through if they had been born in Sierra Leone.

In a poor country, illness is frequently the result of polluted water and insanitary conditions. This is exacerbated by malnutrition, poor education, and the lack of affordable treatments and preventative measures such as mosquito nets.

In Sierra Leone life expectancy at birth of a male is 39 years and a female is 44 years. (The UK average is 79 years). For every 1000 live births, 154 babies are likely to die before their first birthday. 50% of the population is undernourished, and to make things more difficult only 47% of the men and 24% of the women over 15 years of age can read and write.

We can do something about it.  
We are looking to visit Sierra Leone in the first week of March 2010 with a team of people to train and empower local people in basic healthcare principles.

We shall be lead in this by Linden Boothby of Links International. She has a passion for the poor and has lived in Africa working on healthcare-related projects. Having been a manager in a primary care trust in the UK, she brings professional-level skills to help us develop our community healthcare work.

Linden Boothby

We wish to send out a team made up of enthusiastic volunteers, good communicators and people passionate about healthcare.

 What will happen?

Following a needs assessment, training is done using a modular manual. The team will teach healthcare principles to influencers and trainers within the community on the understanding of health in its broadest holistic sense.

 Subjects covered by the modules range from the importance of clean water to sexually transmitted diseases.

The training has been so successful that

• Child mortality rates have been drastically reduced by between 50-80% in many areas around the world.
• A team was sent to train delegates from Nelson Mandela’s home village in South Africa, at his personal invitation.
• Our work has also inspired involvement from regional government, keen to work with us.
• All of the teaching is based on Christian principles and many people begin a relationship with Jesus as a direct result of the transformation that comes to their communities through the training.

The area the team is seeking to reach

(Please click on the photo to enlarge it. Note the housing and communal use of the stream)

They would all benefit

The school's daily supply of water

We shall be arranging an orientation day. This would be from around 10.00am to 4.0pm with a break for lunch. Anyone wishing to come on the trip should make every effort to attend this. To express an interest please contact me, Ted, on tswindaleuk@yahoo.co.uk

I asked Linden what her hope for the visit would be. She replied, "My hope is always that the team will fall in love with the people they meet and teach and that they will want to commit to going back there several times (by which time the community should be flying and able to carry on the work). It is about building relationships, so getting stuck into one area is good. If people never go on another trip they are changed for life and often they become ardent prayer warriors and sometimes amazing fundraisers."

A school is built

It was in 1999, after several years of writing to my penfriend, Alpha, and having helped him to get established in life, I was asked to aid him and his community at Looking Town, on the edge of Freetown the capital.  The area had been devastated in the rebel attack on Freetown of the 6th January, 1999. Thousands of people were killed and homes burnt to the ground. Women and girls had been raped. Children and young people had been conscripted as fighters in the rebel cause. Hundreds of people had limbs amputated.  On the 23rd March,  a group of Christians in the community decided to start a programme for both the residents and the many people who had fled to the area as a result of the civil war and had been caught up in the attack.  The children, some of whom had lost parents in the fighting, were roaming around with no hope, future or direction. The Chief and elders in the community believed that education was the answer. With the help of friends in Community Church Derby we were able to buy a plot of land and to start erecting a school.

Building started on this site with a commanding view over Kissy and across the estuary. At first the school for primary age children was housed in very unstable buildings, but gradually the new school took shape. The children helped in the building work and the great day arrived when everything was ready and the children could carry their desks and chairs to the new accommodation.

Moving day to the new school

What a fine building they have erected. It now houses two schools. The New Era Primary School meets there in the morning and the Junior Secondary School in the afternoon. Alpha Kargbo has done a good job as the Education and Development co-ordinator.  The number of pupils in the Primary School is now 409.  The Secondary School started in September 2008 with 50 pupils and has now nearly doubled in size. Foundations are in place for a second classroom block which urgently needs funds for early completion. Our funding comes mainly from those who sponsor children, as well as events and gifts from a number of Trusts. We are very grateful to all our supporters. If you would like further information or wish to support the work, please contact the UK Co-ordinator, Ted Swindale on tswindaleuk@yahoo.co.uk

The first classroom block, currently home to both schools

A Class in the new Secondary School

Some of the youngest starting their life's journey!

The foundations of our second classroom block taken from the steps of the first.

The building will have an office/library as well as classrooms for the Junior Secondary School. It will also be used for vocational studies such as soap making, gara tie-dying, tailoring, catering and carpentry. Currently much of this has been done in the open-air, but this is not possible in the lengthy rainy season.

Lumley Beach, Freetown
Two miles of white sand along the edge of the Atlantic. This is a main tourist attraction with hotels, shops, restaurants and golf courses.

Welcome to African Pie.
I am Ted Swindale and this is a collection of bits from here and there, put together to create something entertaining, maybe controversial but giving food for thought. But that is not the only reason to call the blog "African Pie". Pie also stands for "Partners in Excellence", which is the aim of the relationship with our Sierra Leonean friends and their land

A bit about the country:-
Where is it? On the West coast of Africa, South of Guinea and North of Liberia. Due South of the UK it is on Greenwich Mean Time and about 540 miles North of the Equator.

Sierra Leone is a beautiful country with fantastic palm fringed beaches, rolling hills and forests, and friendly people.
It has emerged from a most brutal civil war (1991-2002) complete with child soldiers, death, destruction and mutilation on a mega scale. Tens of thousands were killed and over 2 million people displaced. That is more than a third of the country.

The land is considered to have the second richest reserves of mineral assets in Africa, - bauxite, rutile, gold, diamonds plus lush agricultural land and seas teeming with fish.

Yet it competes for bottom place on the United Nations Human Development Indices. These compare life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living of the world's 179 countries. In 2008 coming in at 179, just after the Central African Republic, is Sierra Leone.

The nation once educated leaders for the whole of British Colonial West Africa. Now less than half of men are considered literate, and less than one in four women.

My interest in the country began with a correspondence in 1985 with a young man, Alpha Kargbo, using snail mail in those days!  He is now the Education and Development co-ordinator of our work.