Building and Launching The We Yone Learning Center
HOSL is working with USACF (the US-Africa Children’s Fellowship) to launch the "We Yone (Our Own) Learning Center" that will have a significant impact on the lives of thousands of children and community members. The Center will be built on a two acre site in Masiaka, Sierra Leone, in an area of great need. The community is donating the land and in return, the Center will provide educational economic development opportunities across the region.
Masiaka, which lacks running water and electricity, is home to many amputees and war wounded, mutilated during Sierra Leone’s vicious civil war, who are now raising families under very challenging conditions.
The USACF and HOSL team, in concert with its local Advisory Committees, envision the Center having three areas for teaching and learning, each with its own physical building. With solar panels and a well, the site will offer lighting at night and running water for toilets and community use.
“Libraries and Literacy Building Programs” (Building #1)
Children and adults will enjoy resources beyond a well-stocked library, which will feature titles by Sierra Leonean authors along with thousands of books donated from the United States. Building #1 will also be the nerve center for the ongoing Hands On Reading! program and its planned expansion. The Center will run workshops for area librarians to improve their reading programs and obtain more books. Teachers and librarians will be able to check out materials including class sets of books and materia
“Educational Technology for Sierra Leone” (Building #2)
The Center will include a digital library based on USACF’s “Bridge Pi,” a low-cost, portable, solar powered computer that creates its own wifi hotspot providing free, unlimited access to a wealth of digital resources, from early readers to Shakespeare and African literature, even where there is no internet access. Classes will be offered to teach people in the community how to assemble and program Bridge Pi’s for deployment in area homes and schools.
“Sheri’s Place” – Empowering Women With Marketable Skills (Building #3)
Sheri’s Place will offer a wide range of courses that will empower women and men to learn new skills and provide a means to earn money for their families. Skilled instructors and local mentors will teach these classes. The team will work with community leaders to assess according to the needs of the community. Possible courses include quilting, sewing, cosmetology, jewelry making, sanitary napkin production, and traditional craft making. American quilters have already agreed to visit Masiaka to run quilting and sewing 5-day workshops.
Why USACF and HOSL are Creating the Center
For over 15 years USACF (created and run by a Brooklyn couple, Mark Grashow and Sheri Saltzberg) has mobilized contributions of funds, books, school supplies, sports equipment, toys, clothing and other needed items. They have shipped fifty-five 40-foot containers to reach over 900 schools in Zimbabwe, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, Nigeria, Somaliland, Sierra Leone, Uganda and refugee camps in Jordan. Donated books have been taken home for reading by more than 600,000 children.
In February, 2021, Sheri passed away after a courageous 10 year battle with cancer. Mark and his family, together with other USACF supporters who have also recently lost loved ones, chose to partner with HOSL in Sierra Leone to memorialize Sheri’s spirit of caring, nurturing, and quick camaraderie by creating the We Yone Center. Sheri was a lifelong quilter, and quilting has a special place in Sierra Leone’s post-war recovery. Sheri was an active leader in the Quilters Guild of Brooklyn. Her memory will be preserved as Guild members will help design and stock Sheri’s Place with sewing machines and fabric.
Next Steps
Sheku is hoping to move back to Sierra Leone for 18 months to facilitate the construction and start-up of the Center’s programs. Opening a learning center in his homeland, where so many people struggle to overcome trauma and hurdles in daily living, is the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. We have made substantial progress toward beginning construction during Winter, 2022. But at least $100,000 more must be raised to assure the project’s sustainability. We estimate the cost of building and operating We Yone Learning Center for the first three years to be about $300,000. USACF and HOSL have commitments for 75% of these funds and are now seeking grants and donations to bring the Center to fruition.
The pieces are coming together. A team at MIT has provided site-specific designs. Our contractor is ready to build and says he can complete construction in four months. Our village advisors are identifying instructors to teach all the courses to be offered.
Creating a New Prosthetics Clinic in Sierra Leone
Thanks to Sheku, the founder of Hands On Sierra Leone, the HOSL-USACF partnership is now working with the MIT Media Lab’s world-class prosthetics lab. Two members of MIT’s prosthetics team joined us on our recent two week trip to Sierra Leone. As a result, in the next few years, MIT will build a Pan-African clinic that will use the latest 3-D printing technologies to make prosthetics for some of the more than 27,000 people who tragically lost limbs during Sierra Leone’s bloody civil war. For Sheku, who lost his own parents and his forearms during the civil war, and the thousands of war wounded, this clinic will be a dream come true.
Help us launch We Yone! Please donate now.
Future site of the We Yone Learning Center!