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The founder of the Children in Crisis Center near Freetown, Aunty Sento, rescued 12 children during Sierra Leone's Civil War. Aunty Musu rescued 9 children. In 2000, they joined together and opened the Children in Crisis Primary School, offering free education and shelter to many orphans and others in the Freetown area.
The current stick and zinc pan structure houses a total of 379 students, 208 boys and 171 girls, from preschool through 6th grade, in split half day sessions. It is stifling hot in the dry season and deafeningly noisy in the rainy season.
Through a dedicated partnership between the Children in Crisis school, Copper Pot Pictures' "Brownstones to Red Dirt" film project and Schools for Salone, construction on a new school building will begin in late 2010. Fundraising efforts are in full swing, however, the building schedule is experiencing some delays due to difficulties in securing buildable land. Schools for Salone hopes to have a positive update on this issue soon.
(Read more about the project below) 
"In 1990 the NYPD declared the Bed-Stuy (Do or Die) area of Brooklyn an impact zone. In 3 square miles there were 139 murders." So begins the "Brownstones to Red Dirt" featurette on their web site, but the students there still have plans for the future. In Sierra Leone they just "want peace." The corruption that led to an 11 year civil war left thousands of children orphaned, but the kids there also have ambitions for the future. These kids are separated by 4000 miles, but they have something in common. There is chaos on both sides. They have watched their loved ones killed and the world has forgotten about them. Through a Respect International (Refugee Education Sponsorship Program, Enhancing Communities Together) project, 6th graders from each school have found each other and made connections as pen pals, sharing family stories, drawings, and their hopes and ambitions for the future. They are worlds apart but they love to play ball and they have become friends.
"Brownstones to Red Dirt" is a documentary film about this pen pal project, sponsored by Respect International. The film was 3 years in the making by Copper Pot Pictures, a production company that "strives to tell stories of hope and resilience in the face of great obstacles." This film has become a focus point for all their future projects.
Dave LaMattine of Copper Pot Pictures wrote, "There are a great many digressions I could delve into here about what a life-changing experience it has been, but I'm sure there will be time for that. The reason we are reaching out to Schools for Salone is that we are nearing completion of the film and we're hoping that any success we have can directly benefit our kids in Salone." And so the partnership between Copper Pot Pictures, the Children in Crisis school and Schools for Salone began. "When you get educated, no one can come and remove the education from your head," says one of the CiC students in the film.
Click here to listen to "Children of the Future," inspired by "Brownstones to Red Dirt" original song, words by Diamond Saj, music by Joshua Johnson, who scored the documentary. Performed by Diamond Saj and the Harmonies Girls' Choir of Los Angeles, the song "captures the hope radiating from the kids in Bed-Stuy and Sierra Leone" to "portray the unbreakable spirit of youth around the world." This song is a preview to a coming music video. More information at Copper Pot Picture, Projects.
At the November 2009 New York City Friends and Family Screening of "Brownstones to Red Dirt," Copper Pot Pictures sold tickets, threw a party, and held an auction, donating over $20,000 to the Children in Crisis School project with Schools for Salone. The film will have its World Premiere at the Sarasota Film Festival and will follow with a screening at the San Francisco Film Festival.
In February 2010, the Copper Pot Pictures team, "Salone Rangers" (made up of Dave LaMattina, "Brownstones" legal consultant and assistant captain Mike Abitabilo, Joe Ruppe, Andrew Petrin and official videographer Chad Walker, who claims he can't skate, but loves Salone and wanted to be part of the trip) played in the World Pond Hockey Championship Tournament in Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, Canada. To get in, they played for the Schools for Salone charity. Knowing they had no real chance of winning, they garnered pledges for fun statistics such as: the number of times Dave fell down, for the number of times Mike complained about the cold, for Dave mentioning his big brother's name on American TV. (watch it here!) A lot of people just made general donations and even other teams even made donations! In the end, they raised $3000.
From March 6 - 13, 2010, Copper Pot Pictures held an auction on eBay of over 150 wooden postcards, painted and donated by famous artists from the illustration and animation worlds. There was also an original sculpture of the "Brownstones to Red Dirt" logo kids by Alena and Ryan Tottle. The wonderfully talented sculptor, Vicki Saulls, organized the art auction, which earned over $25,000 for the Children in Crisis Primary School near Freetown for the Sierra Leonean kids and a Bed-Stuy library in Brooklyn for the US kids in the project and film.
In spring and summer of 2010, the "Brownstones to Red Dirt" film enjoyed screenings at several major film festivals around the US, inspiring compassion and a desire to help with the.
Sarasota Film Festival (4/13-14)
Roving Eye Film Festival (4/24)
San Fransicso International Film Festival (4/27)
Seattle International Film Festival (5/29, 5/31)
Brooklyn International Film Festival (6/5, 6/9)
Rhode Island International Film Festival (August)
The Bed-Stuy Library project is another part of the "Brownstones to Red Dirt" story. It is Copper Pot Pictures' gift to the US kids in the Pen Pal project, as the Children in Crisis school is for the Sierra Leonean kids. The library integrates into Schools for Salone's mission of supporting education in Sierra Leone by teaching US students about life in that country.
"The Bed-Stuy library won't just be a standard library," says Dave LaMattina, "but also an environment where the Brooklyn kids can continue to develop their education and interest about Sierra Leone. It will have a section dedicated to providing information about Sierra Leone, the Children in Crisis School and their pen pals." He continues to describe how, like most kids their age, they "were only concerned with the problems within the confines of their neighborhood. But as they learned about Sierra Leone, their focus shifted and they rallied their community to help the kids in Salone,... to look beyond Brooklyn,... into lives that are unlike theirs. Some of those lives and stories could inspire them, others entertain them and still others, like those of their pen pals, might prompt them to take action." The Copper Pot team imagines the library not only showcasing some of the letters back and forth, but also a brief history of Sierra Leone and updates from the Children in Crisis school. "It's been amazing for us to see people that don't have enough by American standards undertake their own fundraising efforts to try to help people they know only by letters. We think that having a central space--the library and a section of that library--where they can remember and celebrate their friends across the world would help the kids inspire their community to not just try to raise money, but also to learn about life in Sierra Leone."
The last part of the "Brownstones to Red Dirt" story is that Copper Pot Pictures is actively soliciting donors to sponsor students at the Children in Crisis School. For $250 per year, a Donor can provide school fees, books & supplies, uniforms & shoes, plus a small living allowance, so the student can stay in school and not have to drop out to work. When possible, Donors will be assigned a student with similar interests. We hope to be able to send progress reports from the school and occasional letters from their student to each Donor, however, these things can be difficult to arrange in Sierra Leone.
The Student Scholarship program, like our School Construction program is supervised and managed by Masanga Children’s Fund in Sierra Leone as part of their non-profit mission.
You can help build a promising future for SierraLeone's children.
