on sierra leone, from kenya

i'm actually writing this post from nairobi, where i arrived yesterday at 4:45am, after flying through the night from freetown via accra. nairobi is an amazing change from freetown, much more developed than i expected.

nairobi skyline

i've been trying to come up with an adjective to describe sierra leone, and all i can come up with is REAL. sierra leone ranks 180 out of 187 on the UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI), making it the poorest country i have visited to date. the most important thing to keep in mind about these numbers, though, is that they are an average of the total population, meaning there are inevitably people who are much wealthier and much poorer than the average indicates. what this means is that the poverty affecting sierra leoneans also affects subsets of populations in other countries. i've seen this poverty elsewhere, just not with the same frequency.

freetown, like many other major cities in africa, is struggling to manage the influx of people from the countryside, who continue to pour in with the hopes of earning more money. a few people told me the population of freetown is approaching 2 million. the city is a winding network of single lane roads, meaning getting from one side of town to the other can take more than 2 hours. hundreds of people stream by, weaving in and out of traffic, as cars inch forward slowly enough that people often just turn them off in the street.

i was in sierra leone to meet with two nonprofits: door of hope (doh.seeyourimpact.org) and village bicycle project (vbp.seeyourimpact.org). these organizations are doing incredible work with very limited resources.

doh is run by a man named joshua handy who was discovered by our us 501(c)(3) partner, develop africa about two years ago. doh started when joshua began to use much of the salary he earned as a teacher ($100/month) to buy school supplies for the children in his community. with help from develop africa and seeyourimpact, joshua's program has grown to include a daily after school program for over 300 children taught by 8 volunteer teachers, a mosquito net distribution program (1000 mosquito nets distributed), and a tailoring school with almost 20 female students.

after school program

unexpected thank you/dance party from DOH's director, joshua sandy

meeting with the board of the FAWE girls school, a partner of DOH

vbp is an organization with an established presence in ghana (almost 50,000 bikes distributed), that is just getting started in sierra leone. i was able to be there for the second shipment of bicycles they have received (each shipment contains between 400-600 bikes). the process vbp uses to remain sustainable is fascinating. they sell more than half of each shipment on the local market to help pay for the approximately $11,000 it costs to ship the bikes from where they are donated and get them through customs. the remaining bikes are distributed in rural communities at half the market price. the founder of village bicycle project, dave, and i spent all day in the town of lunsar (80 miles east of freetown) and a few surrounding villages. it was amazing to see how many of the bikes his team distributed from the first shipment that are still in use and running well.

checking up on bikes from the previous distribution - the man on the right is the local bike mechanic, kareem

with dave and jack, a program coordinator, in the village of mofuke

i'll be in nairobi until monday, when i fly to kisumu, a town in western kenya. i'll spend four days there with two different organizations, humanity for children (hfc.seeyourimpact.org) and innovations for poverty action (poverty-action.org). i'm enjoying having a quiet weekend, catching up on email and sleep. last night i met a few rainer arnolds fellows working in social enterprise in nairobi. it was a great glimpse into the expat nonprofit life here!