The Kori Development Project (UK registered charity 1158663) works to educate, empower and improve the health of women and girls in Taiama, in the KORI district of Sierra Leone.
Carol Infanti has been in contact with Brenda who is our local contact for the Kori project. You may remember that the South East England Region were due to have a lorry collect items from our regional meeting in March but unfortunately the meeting had to be cancelled due to the corona virus outbreak. However a packed container was still sent out. They had sufficient to make it worthwhile sending the container. Unfortunately, in May it was stuck at the port.
Sierra Leone closed all roads just as there was a rice crisis in Taiama. This season the Women’s group had decided to plant vegetables instead of rice. Vegetables can be sold or fed to the pigs in the village piggery. They thought that they could buy rice which is their staple food. Because of the closure of the roads it could have been a disaster. Peter, (the brother of Rose who founded the project and who helps run the clinic) telephoned Rose. Rose is a member of SI Thames Valley, the club was able to buy rice in bulk and arrange for their army contacts to make the 120 mile journey from Freetown to Taiama. The Women’s’ group keep a list of the most needy families and the rice was successfully distributed. The corona virus is in the county but they don’t think it has badly affected Taiama yet. They were badly affected by Ebola several years ago.
In June the container had been moved to a farmer’s field. It should be in Taiama soon.
Once the lockdown restriction on travel had eased, Carol was able to take 2 full car loads of items to Brenda for storage in her garage.
Carol asked Brenda to tell us more about the various stages of getting items shipped out. She discussed this with Rose and she has agreed to chart the progress of the next container which will hopefully be sent out in the autumn. Rose has been given lots of old wooden trays from a local hotel. She and her friend Gill (who some members will have met at conference) have painted them all with blackboard paint. These will be used as individual writing slates by the children. Rose will track and photograph these from start to end of the journey. Hopefully we will have an update at the end of the year/ early new year.
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