FW: [FoSL_Mbr] Digest Number 1156

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From: FoSL...@yahoogroups.com [mailto:FoSL...@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: 12 September 2008 23:04
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Subject: [FoSL_Mbr] Digest Number 1156

Friends of Sierra Leone - General

Messages In This Digest (2 Messages)

1.: [FWD: Peace Corps career events: Oct. 7-10] From: Peggy Murrah

2.: Fwd: BBC article on Sierra Leonne From: mose...@aim.com

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1.: [FWD: Peace Corps career events: Oct. 7-10]

Posted by: "Peggy Murrah" pe...@fosalone.org pmurrah_1999

Thu Sep 11, 2008 6:44 pm (PDT)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Peace Corps career events: Oct. 7-10
From: "Robinson, Bonnie" <brobinson@peacecorps.gov>
Date: Thu, September 11, 2008 3:45 pm
To:

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div.Section1 {page:Section1;} Dear RPCV affiliate groups:
The next Peace Corps RPCV Career Event in Washington, DC, is
coming right up! We are now registering RPCVs for this FREE
four-day event, which will take place Tuesday, October 7 through
Friday, October 10. Highlights include hands-on interactive
workshops and a career fair with over 30 international, domestic,
private and public sector organizations. Pre-registration is
required for all sessions, and attendees are responsible for
their own travel, food, and lodging costs. Detailed information
about this event, including a schedule, is at
www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/events
<http://www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/events> . For more information,
contact Returned Volunteer Services, 202.692.1430,
rvsevents@peacecorps.gov <mailto:rvsevents@peacecorps.gov> . The
registration deadline for RPCVs is Thursday, October 2 at
midnight. If you’d like to post an announcement in your
e-newsletter or listserv, please find a short text below:
Register now! October 2008 RPCV Career Events Tuesday, October 7
– Friday, October 10, 2008 Reconnect with the Peace Corps
community and give your job search a jump start with four days of
career-development workshops and discussions for recently
returned Peace Corps Volunteers. For more information, visit
www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/events
<http://www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/events> . I hope you will share
this with your members and encourage them to take advantage of
this exciting opportunity for RPCVs only! Best regards, Bonnie
Bonnie K. Robinson Program Specialist Returned Volunteer Services
Office of Domestic Programs Peace Corps 1111 20th St, NW
Washington, DC 20526 RPCV Ukraine 2002-05 Are you an RPCV?
Visit <http://www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv>
www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/info
<http://www.peacecorps.gov/rpcv/info> to update your contact
information with Peace Corps!

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2.: Fwd: BBC article on Sierra Leonne

Posted by: "mose...@aim.com" mose...@aim.com

Fri Sep 12, 2008 2:19 pm (PDT)

Oh, dear. Any people or groups that might be interested in restoration of the old building?

Kay Moseley

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7610267.stm

Sierra Leone's ghetto taxpayers

By Katrina Manson
BBC News, Freetown

It is everything you might expect of a ghetto: tumbledown shacks, listless young men, the fug of marijuana hanging in the air, graffiti sprayed on crumbling walls.

But this is a ghetto with a difference.

The chains that dangle around the necks of the handful of local loiterers are not the customary gangsta dog tags, but plastic holders displaying nothing less than tax receipts.

For the first time in generations, people have been flocking to pay their local council tax of 5,000 leones (about $1.5, 90 UK pence) in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown.

"I don't have a job, but I have paid my tax," said Mohamed Bangura, 38, at the crumbling steps of what was once sub-Saharan Africa's first university - the wreck of the old Fourah Bay College.

"This is the first time I've done this: I want to improve my country, I want it to develop."

Locals carry tax receipts in holders around their necks

The area in Cline Town near the docks of the capital's deprived east end is locally referred to as a ghetto, and panbody (corrugated zinc) shacks around the perimeter sell sweet fermenting poyo (palm wine) to the young people gathered around.

Sierra Leo
ne is struggling to rebuild following its 1991-2002 civil war, in which more than 50,000 were killed and infrastructure and businesses devastated.

Erratic supplies of water and light, bad roads and poor access to health and education are among the problems faced by more than a million people in the capital of this former British colony, which is ranked the least developed country in the world by the United Nations.

Death rates for children under five and mothers giving birth are higher than anywhere else on the globe, and 70% of the population lives below the poverty line.

"To see unemployed people paying taxes has surprised a lot of people," said Herbert George-Williams, the new mayor.

"But the people are desirous for a change. We were able to talk with the unemployed and convince them they should pay their taxes to show their patriotism."

Symbol of decline

The red brick ruins of the once-elegant Fourah Bay College stand as a testament to how far Freetown has fallen, a snapshot of faded prestige and modern poverty side by side.

Established in 1827, a link-up with Durham University in 1876 meant Freetown graduates were awarded UK degrees.

The university became the intellectual cornerstone of Sierra Leone, earning the country its long-lost moniker as the "Athens of West Africa".

I paid the tax because I want to rehabilitate the country

Salu Koroma, 28

The 1860 census showed levels of education surpassing some European countries.

This20was attributed to the zeal of missionary societies, combined with the enthusiasm shown by the Krio families descended from freed slaves who founded Freetown in 1787.

But standards have dropped precipitously since then.

At 31%, Sierra Leone's current adult literacy rate is one of the lowest in the world, and the gender divide is marked - only 18% of women can read.

Today, the former bastion of academia's gutted shell is something of a ghost.

During the civil war, it became a shelter for displaced people fleeing attackers who amputated limbs with machetes and child soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs, until one day a fire burnt through the wooden floors.

"We have no work; nothing to do, no sleeping place," said Salu Koroma, 28, at the entrance to the old university, whose modern campuses have since moved elsewhere in the capital.

"But I want to make my country develop. I paid the tax because I want to rehabilitate the country."

Record revenue

Mr George-Williams is all too aware that improvements are needed to help secure stability and improved standards of living.

"We are worried about unemployment because these were some of the symptoms before the war," he said.

Two-thirds of Sierra Leone's youth are estimated to be unemployed or under-employed, though some of those in Cline Town manage to raise money through casual work or jobs on the black market.

Renewed fervour to banish the city's degradation is reaching beyond one ghetto, however.

The old Fo
urah Bay College building is now a gutted ruin

Elsewhere in Freetown, loudspeakers encourage people to pay up and tax-collectors go door-to-door, while queues of tax-payers have been seen to form at the city council.

The council has so far collected a bumper 3bn leones (about $880,000, £500,000) in six months - surpassing the old record of 1bn leones (about $317,000, £180,000) in a whole year.

"This year we have a record payment here for the past four or five generations. It's an ongoing process, but we have actually exceeded our target," said Mr George-Williams.

"Everything rises and falls on leadership," he said of the country, ranked 150 on Transparency International's corruption perceptions index.

So far, the city council has started building public toilets, supplying piped water to marketplaces and fixing up some of the roads, employing up to 800 casual labourers at a time.

The mayor said he also wanted to spend the taxes - which also come from small shopkeepers and businesses charged as much as 500,000 leones (about $160, £91) each - on building schools, cleaning the city and repairing roads.

If he does not deliver on his glut of proposals, he has promised to resign.

Desmond Awoonor-Gordon

General Teaching Council for England

Whittington House, 19-30 Alfred Place, London, WC1E 7EA

Direct Line: +44 (020) 7023 3916

Tel: +44 (0) 870 001 0308 Fax: +44 (020) 7023 3909

Email: desmond
.awoonor-gordon@gtce.org.uk

The GTC contributes to the improvement of standards of teaching and the quality of pupil learning by supporting teacher professionalism. www.gtce.org.uk

Join our online networks: www.gtce.org.uk/networks Achieve: Promoting racial equality Connect: Leading professional learning Engage: Supporting new teachers

For more information on our events: www.gtce.org.uk/events
GTC’s Teacher Learning Academy: www.gtce.org.uk/tla

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