Hello all, Mo here again. Sorry that it took me so long to update my blog. Life has been crazy lately. A recent death in my family, family and personal matters and problems with work have kept me very busy and somber. But my faith in God has not waned and it will not. I know a lot of you out there are rooting for me and I appreciate it more than you can imagine.
What I am doing today is posting some more photos of my last trip to Sierra Leone. Some of the pictures are self explanatory and others are not. Some of the pictures on this posting will show me in my happiest moments and my saddest ones. As many of you know, my grandmother (who was the most important person in my life) passed away February last year in Sierra Leone. Her death came a week prior to my arrival in Sierra Leone on my charitable trip. She had no idea that I was coming home because I had planned on surprising her--a decision I now regret everyday of my life because I believe that had she known I was coming home, she would have waited to see me. I miss her dearly. The trip could not have came at a better time because the love and appreciation so many people showed me for giving them so little helped me through the grieving of my grandma's death.
My organization, Help Sierra Leone, helped a lot of children and family and I am very proud to be a part of that experience. As I indicated earlier, we offered scholarships to about 70 children, provided food to a small village, an orphanage and made monetary donations to an amputee camp and other organizations. I am most proud of the scholarship fund we created because it gave some children hope in an otherwise hopeless society. As some of you may be aware, the culture in Sierra Leone is such that when parents, with two or more kids, can only afford to send one to school, the boy(s) is usually sent to school and the girl(s) stay home. This has created a huge disparity between the level of educated boys and girls. This has led a lot of young girls into early marriage or a life of prostitution, which is a national tragedy. Through my organization, I seek to reverse this problem by taking girls from the street and putting them in classrooms.
Each scholarship recipient must fill out an application and write a short essay about why he/she must be awarded the scholarship. Since I didn't want to turn any child down, I only handed out the number of applications for which I know we can offer a scholarship.
One of the scholarship recipient Haja Bela Bah of the Methodist Girls High School in Freetown wrote in her essay:
".....I am afraid if situation continues this way, I will be forced into early marriage because most of my cousins of same age and those younger than me have already been forced into early marriage. I really don't want to fall victim of such ugly situation as I am desperate to be educated. I am therefore kindly pleading for an immediate assistance in terms of awarding me a scholarship so that I can further my eduction."
Ibrahim Sesay, a student at the Prince of Wales Secondary School wrote in part:
"We manage to eat one meal in the evening, drink a lot of water and go to bed. The water help us to be filled since the food is not enough. In the morning, the little left over rice is what we heat up and everyone take one or two spoons fr0m the pot and we to go school, normally without lunch. We are hungry most of the time but we drink a lot of water to stay filled."
These are disturbing but true stories. No child should have to go through what these kids go through on a daily basis. What I seek to do is help them in any way I can. I am thinking of making my charitable efforts a full time venture instead of a side venture. Monetary issues have been a bar to my efforts, but I hope with everyone's help we can change some lives.
I thank you all for taking the time to read my blog and I invite you all to send me your comments and questions. Please give to this cause and ask your friends, colleagues and family members to give. As I said in my previous posting, with a donation of $20 you can pay a grade-school student's tuition for an entire year; with a $50 donation, you can pay that child's tuition and buy his/her books; with a $100 donation, you can pay tuition, buy books, uniform and a bay for a student. Every penny you give goes towards the cause. I thank you all in advance for your help, and I really hope and look forward to your help.
Mohamed
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