Teachers pray with students taking the exam
Students Pass Exams
Each of our 18 students in grade 6 passed their national exam and are promoted to high school! The top score at Empowering Children School was 312, obtained by Ibrahim Burreh Conteh, followed by Sallue S Bah with a score of 307, and Joselyn Kallon with a score of 305. Our students’ scores ranged from 274 to 312, which compares favorably with national results. Empowering Children School students consistently obtain good scores each year, thanks to our dedicated teachers and staff.
Salaries for Teachers-Our Most Urgent Need
We have a team of excellent and dedicated teachers. Due to shortages with fundraising, their salaries were unpaid for three months, which creates a hardship for them and their families. Since our last newsletter we have raised 1,200 to pay one month’s back salary. We are working hard to raise the remaining two months pay before school begins in just a few short weeks. Please consider donating to this worthy cause if you can. They work very hard to ensure the success of our students.
Football (Soccer) Tournament
Empowering Children School is a member of the Global Schools Network, linking schools in Freetown with schools in Hull City, UK through the British Council connecting classrooms program. Teachers from Hull have visited our school, and in 2019 we also had the chance to visit our partner school St Mary Queen Of Martyrs Voluntary Catholic Academy in Hull. Through this exchange we have been able to share, and learn from each other.
The Freetown schools organized a football tournament at the lead school, Conforti School. Empowering Children School was fortunate to take part in the football tournament. Our first match was a draw, but we lost the second. This was a wonderful opportunity for the pupils to meet friends from other Freetown schools in the Global network.
Farm News
We recently distributed 20 buckets of seeds to small scale farmers from our seed bank. This was done with the support of proceeds from the Jude Holiday Card sales. Jude is a young boy who designed cards and sold to fund the seed bank. With hunger an ever present, and growing problem for people in impoverished communities, this initiative is extremely important.
Online Tutoring
The Education First School in New York has partnered with Empowering Children School to provide tutoring. Student volunteers in New York began guiding students in Sierra Leone through a variety of free online courses, with lessons and practice opportunities, through face-to-face online meetings. The challenges we have encountered are the limited working technologies required to initiate this learning process, and the frequent electric outage problems in our city. The tutors are all international students applying for college in N. America.
New Logo
SHARP has a new logo! The leaves represent our farming/seed bank program. The pencil represents education, and Empowering Children School. The sunrise represents a brighter future through the four prongs of SHARP; education, sustainable agriculture and seed bank, disaster relief, and eventual safe community
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