Our first school in Sierra Leone
Lost on You has been collecting money since the beginning of 2020 to build a school in Sierra Leone with the organisation Street Child, Spain for the project Schools For Tomorrow, a Programme to build 1000 schools across Sierra Leone.
Children living in rural Sierra Leone are missing out on their right to basic education. There is evidence that a shocking 88% of primary age out of school children in Sierra Leone, are living in rural areas. Parents’ own education is one of the strongest influences over a child’s enrolment and progression in school, yet 70% of rural Sierra Leoneans are illiterate - and the majority have never been to school themselves. This is a cycle of illiteracy that must be broken. Our mission is to change that and build a minimum 1 school per year.
The total cost of the project was 11,741.40 euros
Two classroom renovations plus furnishings: €6,334
Teaching materials for both classrooms: €640
Supporting one teacher through three years of training at college: €1,055
Establishing one income-generating initiative: €2,645
Monitoring and evaluation: €1,067.40
It was not easy to raise all the money, especially due to COVID-19 which significantly slowed down our mission, not to mention almost destroying our dream of building the school, but we did our best to deliver what we had promised. Since 2020 we have released 18 EPs from well-established artists, including 1 VA to help and promote unknown artists. (since 2018: 49 EPs and 3 VA)
To accelerate the fundraising we organised a series of charity events at the famous REX club in Paris with Thomas Schumacher and Noir, but the virus that quickly spread across Europe got in our way.
We also hosted an online fundraiser with Beatport on 17 March with 12 amazing artists playing live to raise money for the school.
207 children (117 are boys and 90 are girls) will learn for 5 days a week, from 8 AM to 1 PM in 6 well-equipped classrooms by trained teachers.
The typical rural school curriculum includes Maths, English, Integrated Science, Social Studies, Religious Moral Education, creative practical arts, physical health education, home economics, English Sentence Patterns and Structures, reading.
In Class 6, the final year of primary school, and in preparation for the National Primary School Examination, they have additional classes of Quantitative Aptitude, Verbal Aptitude and General Knowledge Paper.
Each lesson lasts around 35 minutes.
Why we work with Street Child?
We chose to work on this project because we share Street Child's view and believe that achieving universal basic education is the biggest step that can be taken towards eliminating global poverty. We trust Street Child and see their hard work every day to change the lives of many people. It is truly amazing to see their motivation and determination. The costs of building the school are not high compared to other organisations. Street Child keeps costs to a minimum, with maximum impact. They focus on providing essential help, on teaching people to be independent and resourceful. Street Child focuses on what is important, instead of spending a lot of money on advertising, marketing, and promotional material (as many other charities do), they train the teachers, cover the cost of the school for a minimum of 2 years of tuition and give the villagers the opportunity to maintain the school themselves and be independent. Each family that sends a child to the school will receive 2 bags of seeds to plant and multiply to pay the teachers and grow food for the next year. We love the way Street Child works. The logistics, the self-propelled machine they implement and put in place. We know how much need there is in Africa. We have to start somewhere but we know that working together with Street Child has paid off enormously. They have already significantly improved the life chances of 100,000 children in Sierra Leone through education, and have built more than 300 schools since 2008. Isn't that impressive?
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