Our businesses fund the running costs of our schools by providing the revenue we need to pay the wages of our teachers.
But it is not simply about running profitable businesses: we want our busineses to be actively contributing to the development of Sierra Leone. It is our belief that employment, wealth and prospects are much more significant generators of progress and change than traditional charity. So we bring commercial solutions to pressing problems: the solutions are sustainable that way, and their value to the progress of Sierra Leone is much more significant and long-term.
Farming
We run 6 small farms:
Maboraba – rice and cassava
Teckaw- rice
Masasa – rice and cassava
Sherifullah– rice and cassava
Masainkra/Levema – rice and cassava
Makoroh – rice, cassava, peppers
Newton – cassava; experimental crops
At present, our technology is very basic, and we are constrained in scale by a lack of mechanised equipment.
These farms produce the various crops, which we then collect in our lorry and take to our central processing facility.
We run farms because Sierra Leone, which used to be an exporter of rice, is now dependent on expensive imports for its food needs. Tapping into the vast arable potential is a way of empowering communities, as well as producing vitally important food to feed the nation and stop money being wasted on foreign rice.
Food Processing
We run a small factory at Newton, just outside Freetown. Food processing is important: it reduces post-harvest wastage, and adds value to crops. It also offers employment in a vital industry for the country.
At our factory, we process cassava into Gari, a powdered and dried form of the root vegetable that is a staple food throughout Western Africa.
Then we mix it to our special recipe to make “Welbodi Gari”, an variant of gari with added proteins and vitamins to make it more nutritious.
Our factory currently produces around 240kg of gari per day, and offers full time employment to 24 staff members.
Our factory processes the cassava we grow ourselves for only two months a year. The rest of the year, we source cassava from smallholders nationwide, by driving to small villages with our lorry and purchasing cassava from farmers. This is a crucial part of the social benefit we offer: we bring access to markets for remote villages, stimulate demand for their products, and begin the process of smallholder commercialisation that will start to sustainably develop the country.
Internet Café
Our internet café in central Freetown offers internet, photocopying, printing, and risograph printing. In addition, we run internet learning courses, set customers up with email addresses, and offer assistance to our customers.
