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Showing posts from June, 2013

Sierra Leone | Living a Life of Faith

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Twenty years ago, Plummer Bamasa Bailor answered the call to ministry. Over the last 19 years, Plummer (or Pastor “P” as he is fondly known) has served as assistant pastor at Greenbelt Foursquare Church, senior pastor at Brentwood Foursquare Church, founding pastor of The Refiner’s Foursquare Church, and divisional superintendent in the Mid-Atlantic District of the Foursquare Church. Currently, he is the senior pastor of Ignite Flint Foursquare Church, a multicultural congregation located in Flint, Michigan, where his wife, Lorraine, serves with him as co-pastor.

The couple co-founded The Refiner’s Place, Inc., a Christian organization whose mission is to strengthen and resource churches around the world. They partner with congregations and civic groups to conduct training and seminars, workshops and conferences. They also partner with community organizations to build schools and churches. Their most recent achievement is the Sierra Leone Schools and Evangelism Project in  Bombali Dis…
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Sierra Leone | June 5 is gone. Next year's World Environment Day has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin

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"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin." - Mother Teresa 



In his presidential address at the state opening of parliament, President Ernest Koroma pledged to continue with serious efforts to promote realization of the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring environmental sustainability.  Sierra Leone is putting in place policies and practices but have they gone far enough?  Sewa News asked Environmentalist Sheikh Bomboli Tunis for comment.

 "My Government will continue with serious efforts to promote the realization of the Millennium Development Goal of ensuring environmental sustainability.  We will work with all the municipalities to divide cities into several zones and quadrants and institute effective waste management systems. Our administration will use Garbage Disposals as a Revenue Source by encouraging the use of landfill sites to extract methane gas which will be used as another source of energy.  This particular intervent…
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Sierra Leone | Trailblazing Syl Juxon-Smith

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It's been one hell of a ride for Syl Juxon-Smith. Sewa News Stream caught up with the great pop culture icon in a nostalgic mode online, celebrating the era he calls the Golden '70s.




If anyone could lay claim to the distinction of showing a generation of teeny boppers in Freetown how to have a good time, Syl Juxon-Smith can.

"When we see familiar friends we socialized with,  old boy- and girl-friends we clubbed with, our brain immediately conjures up Polaroid pictures of where we were, who we were with, what the weather and temperature in our youthful days was like. Or maybe the sound of old records and videos trigger special memories of the past," Syl notes.

A generation ago, the trendsetting star helped create tons of Polaroid instant photo moments for schoolkids in Freetown. Barely into his teens, he was already a household name. Syl played drums with Purple Haze, a local rock band named after the memorable Jimi Hendrix song. Few years after his debut on the sound…
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Sierra Leone | Environmental Warrior, Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya

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Sierra Leone | Environmental Warrior, Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya
Sewa News Stream | June 17, 2013

Take a tour of Ishmael Kindama Dumbuya's photos on his Facebook timeline and quite a few stand out.



There is Ishmael sprawled on the football pitch of Madina Secondary School in Madina Town, Tonkoh Limba Chiefdom, “home of his home” as he calls it. There's Ishmael with a forest ranger in the Kangari Hills Forest Reserve, one of the few places in Sierra Leone where the endangered forest elephant still survives. There is Ishmael in the middle of Bormeh—Freetown's dump site—calling attention to the persistent organic pollutants (POPS) that are of extreme hazard to humans and animals in a city of more than 2.5 million people and growing. There is Ishmael in a mangrove swamp at low tide holding up fragile roots.

There he is again in the Western Area Peninsular Forest Reserve, which has suffered from deforestation due to urban encroachment. There is Ishmael on the ravaged site of an …
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Sierra Leone | Ibrahim Ahmad Kargbo begins Career as Public Policy Expert

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Sierra Leone has a young population, with an estimated 41.7 percent under 15, and rural. Ten years ago, thirty-something Ibrahim Ahmad Kargbo found he really wanted to make a positive difference so he toured the country with a nonprofit organization focused on young people aged 0-18. Ibrahim worked in partnership with other organizations and the media on education, health, child protection, youth and human rights. His organization used a unique approach to animate people to take initiatives and form collective structures to foster self-development.

The ideas and skills Ibrahim learned have come in handy in his new career in public service. Recently, he earned a public policy graduate degree with an Australia Awards Scholarship. AusAID scholarships provide partner countries like Sierra Leone an opportunity to strengthen their human resource capacity through scholarships to individuals in key institutions, to undertake studies in areas relevant to the development needs of the country.

S…
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Sierra Leone | Stopping Human Trafficking Starts With You

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Last week, 30 young Sierra Leonean migrants were evacuated from the southern Libyan city of Sabha after spending about three months in a dungeon. The group left Sierra Leone in March brimming with high hopes. They'd been promised good jobs in the construction and security sectors in Libya.  But according to Africa Review's Kemo Cham, Sierra Leone foreign minister Samura Kamara said the government was treating the matter as a case of human trafficking.

Human trafficking is recruitment and transportation of people from one place to another by using deception or force for the purpose of exploitation.

The 29 men and one woman reportedly paid $500 to unnamed recruiters, who made the arrangements for their travel from Sierra Leone to Libya through Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. When the group finally got to Sabha, 400 miles south of Tripoli, their money and documents were taken away. There were no jobs waiting as their agents had promised.

Hopes dashed, it took weeks for the…
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Sierra Leone | CEOs, Small Business and Investment Advocates

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Sewa News takes its name from the most important commercial stream in Sierra Leone: the Sewa River. In today's feature, we take a look at CEOs, small business owners, and investment advocates making headlines in Sierra Leone's economy.

Aliko Dangote is one of Africa's richest businessmen. Last month, he took a project estimated at $45 million U.S. dollars to Sierra Leone.  Dangote Cement is now installing a processing plant at Queen Elizabeth II Quay in the nation's capital Freetown, where they plan to start operations soon. The company is expected to produce 1.3 metric tons of cement per year and employ 200 workers.

Dangote Cement also took part in April's trade show at Sierra Leone's National Stadium. The event, which drew 50 international and one hundred and fifty home-based businesses, was organized by the Sierra Leone Chamber of Commerce—the oldest voice for the private sector in Sierra Leone.

Launching the trade fair, chamber of commerce president Gladys S…
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Sierra Leone | A Career in Accounting

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Sewa News Stream talks to Mustapha Wai about why he chose a career in accounting. He is founder and managing partner of Wai & Associates, a Washington D.C certified public accounting and consulting firm.




Sewa News: You've worked in public accounting,  federal government civil service, government contracting, tax and advisory services, small business consulting, international accounting, and forensics. Some of the job titles you have held include deputy director, financial manager, audit manager, senior accountant, auditor and senior auditor.  What's different about all these jobs and areas?

Mustapha Wai: Similar to other professions like law and medicine, accounting is a broad field of specialization and practice. In medicine, for example, one can specialize in diagnostic fields like cardiology and radiology, or clinical fields like anesthesiology and neurology. Accounting is similar in the sense that one can specialize in a specific area of practice within a given industry…
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Sierra Leone @ TICAD V

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President Ernest Bai Koroma took center stage as he chaired the Japan-Africa Summit Meeting on United Nations Security Council Reform at the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African Development, reported Cocorioko  Monday. President Koroma continued his advocacy for permanent seats and other rights and prerogatives for Africa in the Security Council, the paper said.

Koroma is chairman of the African Union Committee of 10 (C-10 ) which is advocating and promoting the African Common Position in the ongoing intergovernmental negotiations for UN Security Council reform.


 The fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V), which began Saturday June 1 was co-organized by Japan Office of Development Assistance, the United Nations Development Program, Office of the Special Advisor on Africa, The World Bank and the African Union. Other contributors include the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the City of Yokohama.

TICAD is a global framework for Asia and A…
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Sierra Leone | West African Snapshot

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"We have citizens claiming ancestry to migrants from as far north as the Maghreb; we have brethren whose ancestors came from all over the Upper Guinea Coast and the Sahel, as well as Nigeria and Ghana. There are other citizens born in this land whose forbearers came as far off as the Indian sub-continent and the Mounts and Valleys of Lebanon and Syria...This is a nation of varied traditions, dress and cuisines; but we have showed cultural unity and cohesion that are not in existence in many parts of the continent." ---President Koroma, Inauguration Speech, February 2013


My name is Adwoa-Kitiwa. Adwoa (pronounced Ajuwah) is a Ghanaian name for a girl born on a Monday. Kitiwa means small in the Akan language.

My eldest sister was also a Monday born, so she was the first Adwoa in the family. She was Adwoa-Kesie and I became Adwoa-Kitiwa. The origin of Adwoa is from the Ashanti region of Ghana, Kumasi. I spent my early childhood/formative years in Kumasi and completed elementary…
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