Schools for Salone

These dedicated people and organizations are essential Partners in working to fufill the goals of Schools for Salone.

Director, Joseph Lamin

Masanga Children's Fund is an authorized non-govermental organization working with partners in Denmark and USA on social, education, water, sanitation and human rights issues in Sierra Leone.

Executive Director, Joseph Lamin, provides all fiscal and operational management of Schools for Salone Projects in Sierra Leone. Through MCF, imported items, such as cement, rebar, roofing supplies are purchased. The villages donate and clear the land, provide locally available materials and unskilled labor.

Mr. Lamin is also a skilled contractor. He builds quality schools in months, on budget, when others fail to do so in years. The Fund, at the request of SfS, only recently began taking a 5% administrative fee. By working with Schools for Salone, the Fund earns revenue that supports an amazing program.

The Masanga Children's Fund in Sierra Leone also cares for 250 foster children directly, and many others indirectly.

Mr. Lamin did postgraduate studies at the Centre for International Health and Development, University College London (www.cihd.ich.ucl.ac.uk), earning an MSC Degree in Community Disability Studies in 2001.

Donations can ALWAYS be sent DIRECTLY to the
Masanga Children's Fund via Schools for Salone.

Minnesota based Books For Africa was founded 20 Years ago. Their Mission is simple: they collect, sort, ship and distribute books to children in Africa. That's all they do. Their goal is to end the book famine in Africa. They are the largest shipper of donated textbooks to the African continent. A recent collaboration with Encyclopaedia Britannica makes it possible to include new and used reference books, including atlases, and dictionaries in their book shipments. A new contract with USAID will ship 1 million books to Visions in Action in Monrovia, Liberia.

In the summer of 2008, Schools for Salone and Books For Africa began a Partnership Program to ultimately send 1,000,000 text and reading books to the schools of Sierra Leone. We are looking for Donations to ship the 1st container of 22,000 Books in the fall of 2008.

Dr. Bob Heavner (RPCV) and the SLRAC
with their first container in 2002

In early 1999, a group of expatriot Sierra Leoneans living in Northern California founded the Sierra Leone Relief Agency of California (SLRAC). Their purpose in doing so was to provide humanitarian aid to victims of the war, to educate Americans about Sierra Leone’s suffering and promote interest in social, economic and development affairs in the country. To this end, they raised funds and donated medical supplies to a refugee camp in 2002, the year peace was declared.

Since then, SLRAC Board members have traveled back to Sierra Leone numerous times at their own expense. They too determined that education represented the hope for the country’s future. In 2004 SLARC identified Scarcies Secondary School, one of the country’s best, located in the rural village of Mambolo, as a deserving recipient of small grant funds for capital improvement and the donation of school supplies and for transportation.

Until July 2008, when Schools for Salone received our own 501(c)(3), non-profit status, the Sierra Leone Relief Agency of California managed the funds we raised. Now tax free donations can be made directly to Schools for Salone.

We thank the Sierra Leone Relief Agency of California for all their support.

Our teamwork has done much to further the cause of education in Sierra Leone. Our coordinated efforts and experience has proven critical in the success achieved by both organizations. Schools for Salone applauds the work by SLRAC at Scarcies, and supports continued efforts to enhance programs as funds become available.

Sierra Leone Relief Agency of California is a
501(c3) Tax Exempt Organization
Tax ID #94-3325395

You can help build a promising future for SierraLeone's children.

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