August 2015 Yengema Secondary School Kono Receives Science Lab Equipment from Archbishop and Ministry - Inventory, photos

August 2015 

Letter from Principal Yengema Secondary School, Yengema, Kono District, Sierra Leone. See photos at bottom of page.

Dear members of YSSOSTFA,

  

On behalf of the school Board, Staff and students of Yengema Secondary School, I wish to express our sincere thanks to the Archbishop Edward Tamba Charles for donating some science equipment to Yengema Secondary School.

We got this science equipment at a time when we were in dire need of it. I wish to assure the Archbishop that we will take great care of these materials and hope to make best use of them.

Our sincere thanks also go to Mr. Komba Emmanuel Senessie for lending us his vehicle to take the equipment to Yengema Secondary School. 

May God richly bless them for this great contribution they have made to the school.

Attached to this letter are the names and numbers of the items donated by the Archbishop and those donated by the Ministry of Education Science and Technology. Our sincere thanks also go to the Government for helping the school in this direction. I hope they will continue to help the school.

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Yours sincerely,

S. E. Nanoh

Ag. Principal

INVENTORY OF SCIENCE EQUIPMENT RECEIVED FROM THE ARCHBISHOP- HIS GRACE DR. TAMBA EDWARD CHARLES.

NO.	NAME OF ITEM		DESCRIPTION		QUANTITY
1.	SPRING BALANCE		0-500 GRAMS		07
2.	HAEMACYTOMETER		SET		06
3.	PETRI DISHES		75MM with cover		392 pieces
4.	A.C ADAPTOR		FOR BALANCE		10
5.	WASH BOTTLE		POLYPROPYLENE 250ml		02
6.	DROPPING BOTTLE		PKTS. 250ml		24
7.	FUNNEL STAND		POLYPROPYLENE BASE		4
8.	SPECIMEN TUBES		4 PKTS. OF 10		40
9.	PIPETTE CARRIER		94 PLACE		06
10.	REFLEX HAMMER				05
11.	METHYLATED SPIRIT BURNER				02
12.	CONDENSER LIEBEIG OF SUCKET		& CONEB 14/25		01
13.	RETORT STAND		BASE 2X14		28
14.	ROUND BOTTOM FLASK		50ml		10
15.	PIPETTE		10ml 2Pkts OF 5		10
16.	BEAKER		100ml		02
17.	ROD FOR STAND (LAB)		5Pkts of 8 +7 pcS.		47
18.	EMPTY RUBBERS		LABORATORY REAGENT		02
NO.	NAME OF ITEM	DESCRIPTION		Mfg Date	Exp. Date	Qty
19.	CALCIUM SULPHATE	2 HYDRATE 500G				06 Bottles
20.	TALK FINE POWDER	FRENCH CHALK				01
21.	NITRIC ACID	HNO3 63.01		Aug 2010	June 2015	01 Bottles
22.	ETHYL ACETATE	CH3  COOL2 H5 =88.11		Aug 2010	June 2015	06 Bottles
23.	PETROLIUM ETHER	60-800C.  2.5 Ltr		July 2010	June2015	04 Bottles

INVENTORY OF SCIENCE EQUIPMENTS RECEIVED FROM THE GOVERNMENT

NO.	NAME OF ITEM	DESCRIPTION			QUANTITY
1.	PIPETTE	2.5ml			50
2.	BURETTE	2.5ml			03
3.	BURETTE	50ml			02
4.	HAND LENS				02
5.	WATCH GLASS				04
6.	GLASS SLAB	75x50x12mm			01
7.	GLASS SLAB				01
8.	WATCH GLASS	LARGE			01
9.	BEAKERS (BOROSILATE GLASS)		250ml 1 Pkt.		20
10.	ROUND BOTTOM FLASK	250ml			01
11.	MEASURING CYLINDER	100ml 200C			04
12.	BEAKERS	100ml 1 Pkt OF 10			10
13.	TEST TUBE	BOROSILATE GLASS			25
14.	ELECTRIC MOTOR	1.5-6V			01
15.	AMMETER	D.C. MOVING COIL			01
16.	MICROMETER SCREW GUAGE	0-25mm			01
17.	FLAT BOTTOM FLASK	250ml			01
18.	CONICA FLASK	250ml			01
19.	TEST TUBE	BOROSILATE GLASS			20
NO.	NAME OF ITEM	DESCRIPTION		Mfg. Date	Exp. Date	Qty
20.	POTASSIUM IODIDE	Kl = 166.01		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
21.	BARIUM CHLORIDE	BaCl22H2 O =244.28		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
22.	POTASSIUM PERMANATE	(KMNO4 158.04)		Aug 2010	June 2015	01 Bottle
23	ZINC NITRATE Zn(NO3)2	6H2O =297.47		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
24.	SODIUM THIOSULPHATE	NaS2O35H2O =248.18		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
25	ZINC CARBONATE	[ZnCO3]2  [Zn(OH)2]3 =548.96  - 500gm		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
26.	SILVER NITRATE	AgNO3 = 169.87 250gm		Aug. 2010	July 2015	01 Bottle
27.	SILVER NITRATE	AgNO3=169.87 250gm		July 2010	June 2015	01 Bottle
28.	SODIUM NITRATE	NaNO3  =84.99 1kg		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
29.	COPPER SULPHATE II	CUSO25H2O =249.68-1kg		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
30.	FEROUS SULPHATE	FeSO47H2O =278.01- 1kg		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
31.	BARIUM SULPHATE	BaSO4  =233.39 – 1kg		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
32.	CALCIUM CHLORIDE	CaCl2  =110.99 – 500gm		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	01 Bottle
33.	CALCIUM HYDROXIDE	Ca(OH)4  =74.10  – 1kg		Sept. 2012	Aug.2018	01 Bottle
34.	AMMONIUM	NH4Cl  =53.49 – 1kg		Sept. 2012	Aug. 2018	1 Bottle
35.	THERMOMETER	00-600				01
36.	FILTER FUNNEL	GLASS				10
37.	FILTER FUNNEL	POLYTHENE – 1 pkt.				10

Part 6 - Kayima Gravity Fed Water Supply Dam - Monitoring

Water Quality Jan 2015

22.1.15 Report received: "Water cannot reach the Health Centre"

24.1.15 Report received : "Water relatively pure presently. The pipes from the dam and within the town are badly damaged. The water is wasting. We have started experiencing shortage of water in some parts of the town. Most times, particles like dry leaves do come from the tap. Recommendation work on reservoir for the town to get pure water, and also wiremesh for the dam to be covered (Comments from: Musa Mondeh, Alex Fanday & Sahr Bamba). The main pipe from the dam has a leakage somewhere close to the town, will need to confirm if mesh has been removed"

13 February 2015

13 February 2015

14 February Report received: "The main pipe to the dam needs maintenance if the town is not to have a water shortage during the dry season. The dam needs to be cleaned."

14 February 2015

14 February 2015

14 February 2015

14 February 2015

14 February 2015

14 February 2015

14 February 2015

12 March Report received: "Preparations are going on for the reopening of schools. The Ebola CCC at the secondary school has been relocated to the back of the Health Centre at the other end of town to pave way for schools reopening."

2 April Report received: "The water system is very poor. The taps cannot run during the day time and only a few during the night. No rain yet. The water that comes brings so many particles. Regarding the reopening of schools, the BECE exams that were postponed due to ebola have commenced this past Monday and general reopening of schools will be the second week in April".

YSSOSTFA at SLUKDERT Education beyond Ebola Conference 7 March 2015 London

Yengema Secondary School Old Students Teachers and Friends Association

Handout for SLUKDERT Education beyond Ebola Conference 7 March 2015

Web site:  www.yss-association.org.uk twitter: YSSOSTFA email: info@yss-association.org.uk

YSSOSTFA is an association of former students, teachers and friends of Yengema Secondary School, in Kono District, Sierra Leone – based in UK working in partnership with volunteers and organisations in the UK, Sierra Leone, Ireland and internationally - to advance, support and rehabilitate learning at the school. YSSOSTFA is a registered charitable Company Limited by Guarantee, No. 8432599 (UK).

PRIORITIES

·         RAISE STANDARDS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING - Urgently increasing the capability of teachers to provide higher standards of education to students and surrounding communities with teacher training​, teaching resources, strategic school planning and curriculum development

·         REHABILITATION OF INFRASTRUCTURE and PASTORAL PROGRAMME - Rehabilitation of infrastructure including buildings, labs, equipment and teaching materials; motivating children to stay in school instead of working in diamond mines; child safeguarding and gender equality.

​
Since 2012 YSSOSTFA has worked successfully with Yengema Secondary School's administration to design and implement a number of strategic projects aimed at raising standards of learning and teaching at the school.

·         ​Networking with Sierra Leonean community organisations, other school partners, staff and students and using social media to help connect hundreds of ex-students and friends of the school as well as some of the school’s ex-teachers.

·         In partnership with the Eastern Polytechnic Distance Teacher Training College in Sierra Leone; delivering in service teacher training courses to 3 of the school's teachers, thanks to scholarships from YSSOSTFA. We hope to extend this scholarship programme as funds allow.

·         Reference Library Project with a large number of books and a study area for 50 students at a time- completed 2014 and ongoing support – African Writers Series -

·         Curriculum Development and Raising Standards Project - in progress - School Improvement Plan - in progress 1st draft

·         Gender project - to be developed

·         Solar Power Supply Project - preliminary planning complete, partial partner implementation - in progress (library only)

·         Science Labs (chemistry, physics and biology) Project; planning, furnishings and fittings - in progress

·         Workshops rehabilitation - concept phase

·         Staff quarters rehabilitation - concept phase

·         Agricultural, environment and honey bee project - concept phase​​

·         Shipment of Chlorine Granules + anti-Infection (Ebola) Kit, and purchase of Tanks, Veronica Buckets

Constraints and challenges:

·         Although we have offered capacity building assistance and partnerships to the Freetown and Kono based YOSA alumni organisations, these partnerships are still a work in progress.  

·         Our outreach and research suggests that the founders, the Catholic Church leaders in Sierra Leone are not in a position, financially or organisationally, to involve themselves in major support of second-level education in most of the country's districts.

·         Working in partnership with and getting cooperation of SL Ministry of Education and local authorities to facilitate better governance and resources for the school and its students.

·         Enhancing ebola resilience of school and surrounding community

·         Facilitation of students to return to school, will students return? Can they? Diversion of students from education because of pregnancies, attraction of diamond mining, poverty, etc

·         Ensuring World Bank GoSL funding for reopening of schools after ebola arrives at the school and is used effectively for its purpose

·         Many teachers around the country apparently not happy with March reopening of schools but their principals seem to be in favour, is this because of prospect of the above funding?

·         Poor internal organisational capacity of schools resulting in failure to proactively solicit, receive and benefit from those who may wish to help (not donor fatigue–donor frustration)

·         Getting students to take interest in non-curriculum titles for reading and broader learning

·         Re-introducing the Volunteer service ethic to students and teachers – we have had some success here – especially library project !

·         In order to deliver we have been constantly faced with problems of building local capacity, utilizing local manpower and materials, and providing unattainable materials from afar and putting systems in place to accomplish our projects.

·         etc

For more information on how we have overcome some of these challenges please contact:

Sahr Fasuluku

Director – YSSOSTFA

sahrfas@yahoo.co.uk

07740 277 969

 All photos credits below : - Ade Daramy SLUKDERT - click on photo to see full size

Judiciary awakening in Sierra Leone? Will the Legislature follow?

Image credits: Morris, Mike Ritter

If reports are true that a petition has been lodged to the Supreme Court in Sierra Leone, let's hope the judiciary will be truly independent and hear this case from the perspective of the protection of the rights and liberties of people and communities. Not from the perspective of protection of executive power. 

We are hearing from the judicial branch of our democracy, this is a good thing. It shows our civil and moral consciousnesses are growing. We can all remember times when no lawyer would dare to prepare, let alone arrive at court to submit, such a petition. Those were dark times.

The Sierra Leonean Bar have shown bravery. What is more, they may also share a belief in Sierra Leoneans' vision for our country; a place where the law protects all, even the smallest. Especially the smallest. A place where people can go about their lives without fear. The fear of oppression, violence, arbitrary incarceration, or the fear that their rights and liberties will without any shadow of a doubt be denied.  It is a reckless thing to leave people without recourse to justice.

It now remains to be seen whether our Courts have finally matured, whether they recognise their own power and their part to play in the growth of the nation, and whether they have grown the will to join the people they are sworn to protect and shrug off their reputation for allowing injustices to continue indefinitely, supporting the powerful against the weak, 'the government of the day', and the rich against the poor.

"An independent, impartial and competent judiciary is the key component of the rule of law and

the foundation upon which all rights, including non-derogable rights, depend."  (Latimer House Principles, endorsed by Commonwealth Heads of Government at their summit in Abuja, Nigeria,

December 2003, Article IV, Independence of the Judiciary)

This turned my mind towards Parliament and how much I looked forward to hearing from our elected representatives. These Members of Parliament who were elected by their own local people and local communities to live among them and engage with civil society, and while living among them to familiarise themselves with the needs of these local communities. Elected to then travel regularly  to our nation's capital to deliver their peoples' messages to Parliament (not forgetting of course to come back home and live). Elected to vigilantly fight for their peoples local interests and put them above the interests of multinational corporations, international lobbyists and 'the government of the day'. Elected to protect local livelihoods, environments, communities and families. Elected to scrutinise carefully and revoke, rather than make, unjust laws that take away from local communities the land and resources underneath their own feet, or laws and practises that remove our regional communities' livelihoods and ability to sustainably develop. Elected to oversee, scrutinise and regularly and vigilantly enforce international resource contracts. Elected to be conscious of the value of our resources when deciding their price and ensure strong community-centred clauses and environmental protection are at the heart of every agreement. Elected to show confidence and never, from misguided desperation or promises of favours, allow large companies to irreversibly degrade and pollute our lands and waters or the quality of life of our people who live there.

Image - Plan EU

And Parliament, as a sovereign body that is both master of and subject to our constitution; where the constitution is lacking and biased towards the powerful against local communities, was elected to reform the constitution and make it people and community-centred, make it protect the weak against the strong, promote the richness of ethnic and religious diversity and respect for each others differences, ensure it protects our environment, natural resources and ancestral homes, make it impose on all of us a duty to provide an unoppressive sustainable resilient future for this and future generations.

And elected to remember Parliament's status is not subservient to the executive arm of government.

If Parliament does these things and enforces all of this with the sovereign authority that it was given by the people, it will earn back its lost moral authority.

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Further Reading: 

Letter: Dr Abdulai Conteh, Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas (March 2015), in news editorial, Sierra Leone Telegraph 19th March 2015,  http://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/?p=8825 (last accessed 25/3/2015)

Petition reportedly filed at the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone (March 2015) (picture below):

Open Society Foundations (2014) "What Does Justice Have to Do with Overcoming Poverty?" http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/explainers/what-does-justice-have-do-overcoming-poverty  (last accessed 25/3/15)

de Vasconcelos, Álvaro (2011) "Global Governance: Building on the Civil Society Agenda" European Union Institute for Security Studies,      http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Global_Governance_Building_on_the_civil_society_agenda.pdf   (last accessed 25/3/15)


Campaign for Good Governance (2014) "Civil Society Index - Rapid Assessment Report Sierra Leone"  http://civicus.org/images/stories/Sierra%20Leone%20CSI%20RA%20final.pdf (last accessed 26/3/15)

Koroma, J (2005), article "Examining Judicial Independence and Security of Tenure of the Office for Judges" Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law,  http://www.carl-sl.org/home/articles/45-joseph-koroma (last accessed 25/3/15)

SL Open Government Initiative (2013), "Judicial Branch"  http://www.ogi.gov.sl/government/judicial-branch (last accessed 25/3/15)

Robertson, Geoffrey, QC (2014) "Judicial Independence: Some Recent Problems", International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute  http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=15acea39-aeee-46ef-ab76-1cd18d7571cc (accessed 25/3/15)

Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2004) Vol 2 Chapter 2 pp 90-93 "Findings in Respect of the Judiciary, the Rule of Law and the Promotion of Human Rights"   http://www.sierra-leone.org/Other-Conflict/TRCVolume2.pdf (accessed 25/3/15)

The Sierra Leone Telegraph (26 February 2014), article "Constitution Review"   http://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/?p=5540 (last accessed 26/3/15)

Constitutionnet (2014) "Constitutional History Sierra Leone" http://www.constitutionnet.org/country/constitutional-history-sierra-leone  (accessed 25/3/15)

Tommy, Ibrahim (2013) article "The rough edges of Sierra Leone’s rule of law credentials" http://politicosl.com/2013/06/the-rough-edges-of-sierra-leone%E2%80%99s-rule-of-law-credentials/ (accessed 25/3/15)

Suma, Mohamed (2014) pp 9-13 Ch 3, Sierra Leone Justice Sector and the Rule of Law "Independence and accountability of judges and lawyers",  Afrimap, Open Society Initiative for West Africa  http://www.afrimap.org/english/images/report/Sierra%20Leone%20Justice%20DD%20Web.pdf (26/3/15)

Human Rights Committee (2014) "Concluding Observations on the Initial Report of Sierra Leone" http://www.ohchr.org/EN/countries/AfricaRegion/Pages/SLIndex.aspx (accessed 26/3/15)