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Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodist News |
May 2001 |
Operation Classroom report:
Rough riders on the rehabilitation road: mixed news from Sierra Leone
By Mary Sue Best
Hoosier UM News correspondent
"Most of Sierra Leone is now safe for travel," words many Hoosiers welcomed, when Joe and Carolyn Wagner reported on the recent Operation Classroom trip. But it's still rough riding up-country on rutted roads, through ruins on the way to reconstruction of lives and structures.
Traveling to safe areas where they had not visited since 1996, then to Freetown, the Wagners experienced a gamut of emotions: joy at the continuing enthusiasm for education by parents and students; dismay at the destruction of school buildings and property; sympathy and anguish for the amputees in a camp for them; and pride in the advancements at the Kissy Health and Maternity Center in the capital.
On their two-day trip up-country, they traveled in the original 1987 O.C. Toyota van which had logged over 100,000 miles in 14 years. Saffa Koroma, O.C. Coordinator, and their driver Abu, provided information to the Wagners and Doug Ahfeld from Construction Connection in Northern Indiana, there to evaluate solar and generator needs.
Some villages, once vital, are now in ruins; yet the village of Do seemed largely untouched by the civil strife, and accommodated many displaced persons.
A massive reconstruction and renovation of schools and villages not under rebel control is taking place in the Fergusson Memorial School in Moyamba. Baoma Secondary School has benefited from major renovation. The greatest need for repairs is evident at Bo Centenary School, the main classroom building in ruins, the other block structure badly damaged. Not damaged was the assembly hall constructed by O.C. in the early 1990's. All have urgent needs for furniture and science equipment, as the combined enrollment is at between 3,000 and 4,000 students.
Three O.C. schools in the rebel controlled region, Koidu, Jaiama, and Makeni, remain closed, with no known date for re-opening.
Albert Academy, a boys' high school in Freetown, with 2,000 students, has received aid from O.C. , the local P.T.A. and the alumni groups in Washington, D.C. and London.
The most disturbing experience for the Americans came at the amputee camp, housing 221 amputees and their families. Of these, 31 were double amputees. The horrors and atrocities were overwhelming.
Handicap International is at work making prostheses, but it is a slow process to construct the correct prosthesis, make it fit comfortably, and then to assist the patient in how to use it. Hope appeared elsewhere, too. A volunteer teacher, functioning in an improvised classroom without textbooks and with sparse supplies, led high school students in their work.
One of the bright spots in Sierra Leone is the UMC Health and Maternity Center, known by most as the Kissy Clinic, in Freetown. Dr. Dennis Marke and his staff have been able to rehabilitate buildings, and with the voluntary assistance of British UM soldiers stationed there, built a new laboratory and a small ward. Other wards have been repainted. With the help of many, especially the churches in the Marion and Bloomington Districts, O.C. expects to purchase a four-wheel-drive vehicle so that the staff can visit villages and displaced camps.
Rebuilding structures requires funds, personnel supplies. But so does rebuilding lives. Soon O.C. hopes to begin a counseling training program in Sierra Leone, patterned after the one in Liberia. A program for trauma counseling by trained workers is another hope for the people.
Operation Classroom is seeking volunteers for a workteam to Freetown this summer to repaint classroom buildings.
For more information about
Operation Classroom
contact the Wagners at 765.324.2556; fax: 765.324.2686;
e-mail:
Joe Wagner or Carolyn Wagner.
Check out the Operation
Classroom Web site
Last updated January 14, 2004