Company News

A Working Holiday

Richard Green-Wilkinson, Tax Director at CW Fellowes Limited shares his  thoughts on a recent visit to Sierra Leone.

"I have been a trustee of the St George Foundation, which rescues street children in Sierra Leone, for four years.  I decided to return to the country four years after my first visit.  I had one or two jobs to do.

Surprisingly little had changed - a sunny destination with some beautiful beaches, but this is not a holiday resort. This is one of the poorest countries in the world, savaged by 11 years of civil war, which finally ended in 2003.

Crossing the bay from the airport to Freetown was the same old rusty, smelly ferry.  When you reach Freetown you are hit by the noise, the bustle and the poverty. Mud and corrugated iron housing amongst some brick built buildings, no modern high rise buildings or Western economy influences here.

At just 10 degrees north of the equator it is very hot and very humid.

In the five years it has been running, St George Foundation (SGF) has rescued some 650 children. It is seen as one of the most successful charities in Sierra Leone. When a local children’s charity was closed down recently, the President insisted the children were taken in by SGF, rather than UNICEF.

99% of all funds raised in the UK are sent to this charity in Sierra Leone, and my job was to check that the money is received and properly recorded.

During the middle of the day I spent a gruelling five hours checking the records and was amazed to find that they had a receipt for every item of cash drawn.

At 6,000 Leones to the pound a transfer of £1,000 would mean that the charity would have to collect 6,000 grubby 1,000 Leone notes.  Quite a challenge with the security problems in Freetown.

I was accompanied by my wife,  Anne, we are both keen to help the charity to raise funds in Sierra Leone and to help grow their own food, so while there we checked on a rice growing project.  The rice fields are north of Makeni, so we had a three hour drive. Fortunately about the only good bit of road is between Freetown and Makeni.  Elsewhere the roads are just appalling!

It seems we timed the sowing better this year as the harvest looked to be better than last year.

We explained to the farmers that they would get a better yield if they planted the rice seed instead of scattering. They  were not convinced but agreed to plant our land and scatter on their own – and see which does better. We are hoping to plant up 250 acres for the coming season.

In a further attempt at encouraging the charity to raise funds in Sierra Leone, we have been buying up cheap second hand 4x4's in the UK and shipping them out. A nice idea if we can hire them out at $1,000 per week. What I hadn’t realised was quite how bad the roads are.  Still, at least we can write off the cost in the accounts in the year of purchase!

The other problem with the 4x4's is that as soon as the ship docks in Freetown everything moveable gets stripped out and taken. One vehicle had a built in CD player so the whole dashboard was taken apart.

It was an interesting experience when, on the last day, we decided to take the children to the beach. 60 of them and 7 adults in 3 4x4's is quite a sight. No health and safety regulations here. It would have been fine if 3 of the children hadn’t been car sick!

Part of our role in Sierra Leone is to check on the children that have gone back into the community. After about a year at the Centre, a search is made for family, perhaps distant relations, with a view to reinstating them, but continuing to pay their school fees.  All schools are fee paying.

While we were there one family was visited where the father had seen his own parents killed by the rebels in his house, and they had then cut off his hands. He managed to escape with his wife and children, sadly his wife later died. We had subsequently picked up one of the children on the streets.

The father was well educated, but could not get a job without any hands. He and his five children live in a corrugated iron shack.  It is pitiful to see such poverty.

We spent a lot of time during our visit exploring the setting up of a midwifery training school.

Although the main aim of SGF is to rescue street children, the problem is that there is a steady trickle of more children onto the streets. So the challenge is how to cut this down. One way of tackling this, which SGF is undertaking, is to set up community organisations to spot family problems and solve the problems before they get serious.

Another problem is the very high maternity mortality rate. At one in eight this is one of the worst in the world. Without a mother to care for them, children are likely to find their way onto the streets.

We visited a possible hospital site and talked to the site owners about the additional accommodation that would be needed. No need for lengthy planning permission requirements here. We had a meeting with the President’s wife, who is very keen on the project and agreed to be the Patron.

Although we had a busy and productive week, we left with the feeling that so much needs to be done here. All we can do is keep providing the funding and ideas, with a view to helping as many children and give them a decent life and hope for the future."

Richard Green-Wilkinson
April 2010