23/2/2025
I don’t have the words to express the joy I felt returning to Kagbankona Village yesterday. I first met the people of Kagbankona and the 27 surrounding villages (collectively known as Thuan Mathinki) in 2001 when they were at Ross Road camp for internally displaced people. At that time I was living and working as a finance professional in the UK but I was also Chairperson of the Sierra Leone War Trust for Children (SLWT), a not for profit organisation that I co-founded in April 1999 with 6 other UK-based Sierra Leoneans to help children and youth affected by the civil war.
In the 5 year period between 2002 and 2007, we constructed the 6 classroom Kagbankona primary school, paid for the training of 5 full-time qualified teachers, built the Kagbankona Health Centre, dug 12 wells and provided agricultural training, seedlings and tools for 230 farm families in Kagbankona and the surrounding villages.
Lives have been transformed and continue to be transformed through the introduction of education and health facilities to this deprived community. Yesterday I met with community members including several former pupils who shared moving testimonies about their personal journeys. Yesterday we celebrated the power of patriotism, love and action.
