Buffet-style dinner, by Weyone Catering

On February 18, we had our annual Benefit Dinner at the Alberta Avenue Community Hall.

First our guests got the chance to know each other better with some fun mixer activities. Information facts about Sierra Leone were also displayed on the walls and several video clips about the 2012 projects were shown during the evening – teacher salaries, digging a second water well and completing reconstructive surgery for Nasratu, the mother of one of our students in Romano Village.
The evening was colorful and full of musical performances: after Yaya and Isatu Kadi sang the Sierra Leone and Canadian national anthems, we enjoyed traditional Temne songs by the group “Women of Sierra Leone”. Sudanese songwriter Elizabeth Bol sang a recent composition thanking Canada for providing opportunities to immigrants.

Weyone Catering, owned by Matilda Kamara, provided the delicious Sierra Leone food. Throughout the dinner, Ishokan Afrika accompanied us with drumming and Yussefu Kamara rounded out the evening with a DJ mix of African music.

A big thank you to our volunteers from Interact and Bellerose School. And thank you so much to all of those in attendance without whom this fundraiser would not have been possible.

Graeme’s Award

Graeme with Heather McPherson, ACGC’s Executive Director

One highlight of the evening was the award by the Alberta Council for Global Cooperation (ACGC) to Graeme Matichuk. Our faithful volunteer Graeme, student at Bellerose Composite School, was selected as one of Alberta’s Top 30 under 30 youth who are making a positive difference in the world. With only 17 years old, Graeme is already a role model by being actively involved in many international and local development projects.

Appeal for donations

Memunatu with Women of Sierra Leone

A total amount of $6,000 was collected on Saturday from our supporters. We are still collecting donations until we meet our $20,000 goal for 2012. Donations can be made by:

a. Mail a check to the Tamaraneh Society for Community Development and Support at the following address:
P.O. Box 78170
RPO Callingwood
Edmonton, Alberta
Canada T5T 6A1

b. Donate online:

www.tamaraneh.org/contact

All donations go directly towards: teachers salaries, digging a second water well and completing reconstructive surgery for Nasratu.

Thank you to everyone who helped make our evening such a success!

Art piece by David Shkolny

Photography courtesy of Heidi Bernhardi - freeplaydesign.com

Including Musical Performance by:

We have a partnership with McNally School in Edmonton to continue raising awareness and support for the people of Sierra Leone through the Tamaraneh Society. It is pretty exciting to see what young people can do when they get motivated! To launch our work with McNally School we have put our creative juices to work and built a white board infomercial together called “McNally Rally for Romano”.

Click below to see the 2 minute clip:

Another Tamaraneh Year marked at our Annual General Meeting at Koulture’s restaurant!

We held our annual general meeting at Koultures Afro-Continental restaurant this year on October 27th, 2011. It was great to see people, recall our triumphs and challenges and support a local restaurant. Pictures are up on our Facebook Page and a pdf of our annual report is here

Kids Go Global Partnership with Trickster Theatre

Another interesting partnership is emerging through Trickster Theatre’s Kids Go Global project. The details are still in the works but you can take a look at the work already done to see where we might be heading with them in a partnership with Tamaraneh. The contract is signed, we now need to get the project rolling. Here is the website: http://www.trickstertheatre.com/, and you can also download a pdf document explaining more about the Trickster Theatre Kids Go Global Project

Grant for school roof replacement has been approved by Community Spirit

Our submission for a grant for the school roof replacement that was done after torrential rain and winds destroyed our primary school roof a year and a half ago. We had to beg and borrow to get matching funds for the roof in place, but it looks like all the hard work paid off. Unfortunately we have not yet seen the money because the format for providing the cheques is now accompanied by an official presentation by an MLA and this requires that we wait in line for that moment and photo opportunity. But we promise to post the “official” photo with the cheque in hand as soon as we get it!

Change for Children fundraising has earned us the funds for an on-site employee in Sierra Leone

Thanks to the ongoing efforts of Change For Children, we now have enough money in our account there to pay for a salaried employee on site in Sierra Leone. This is something we have desperately needed and are happy to be able to set up. We have a job description and will be advertising in January for the position.

Decision about teacher salaries

We originally intended to set up the school component of our development work so that the Ministry of Education of Sierra Leone takes on teacher salaries after three years of support from the Tamaraneh Society. We have letters and certificates guaranteeing this from the government but they have not fulfilled their promise. Our teachers who are Tamaraneh supported have been sharing their salaries with the teachers who were supposed to be paid by the government and they just informed us that they have been doing this for three years. We could lobby the government but it likely will not result in any real action. In the mean time we are faced with a dilemma: paying salaries from Canada is not a sustainable way to run a development project but if we do not continue the salary payments, the schools will shut down. Teachers have refused to come to work since we stopped payments in June 2011 and the government employed teachers have still not received their salaries. The community will only be able to support its teachers when it has a stronger economic infrastructure. We are working on getting micro-businesses and industry initiatives started in the area but this will take several years to be solid. In the mean time all our work will be for nothing if the children are not able to get even a basic education.

We want to keep the learning happening in Romano Village, but it is not realistic to think that anyone can wait three years for their salary with no likely changes on the immediate horizon. Most projects that provide teacher salaries do it through a “foster child” type initiative. What should we do?

Help us solve this dilemma, we need your input!

We will be asking you for feedback on our facebook poll. You can also feel free to contact us at info@tamaraneh.org or to tweet us an idea @Tamaraneh.

_________

Dear Wendy and Marie,

We are very happy to tell you that the container landed in Freetown on the 28th August, 2011 just as you informed me in your last email. Thank you.

On behalf of my personal behalf and members of the school committee, I want to thank you very much for your kind gesture and we hope that our relationship will grow from strength to strength.

We were granted duty free by the Government of the Republic of Sierra Leone, for which we were very grateful.

Thank you.

Regards,

Abdul Salaam, Container Coordinator
__________

Once again, we would like to thank the Emmanuel Foundation for their help with coordinating and supporting the shipment of donations from Edmonton to Romano Village.

The award is presented to someone who has contributed towards multiculturalism, shows dedication to the community and is of assistance to immigrants - all of which Issa Kamara, through his local organization Sinkunia, does in his work to help emerging African community youth and families. Even being considered for the award is a wonderful honour so please join us in congratulating Issa and his achievements. We would also like to congratulate Issa’s co-recipient, Amson Saintime, who is the Executive Director of the Arbre de Vie Fine-Arts World Fellowship.

For our supporters not familiar with the annual Heritage Festival in Edmonton, please have a look at this video for a bit of background— the organizers actually talk about the Citizen of the Year award at the 3:40 mark of the clip.

The shipment, which included clothes, school supplies, shoes and medical supplies bound for the Romano Village area, left on June 4th.

We would also like to thank the Emmanuel Foundation for their help with coordinating and supporting the shipment of donations from Edmonton to Romano Village in Sierra Leone:

The 2011 RISE Awards Gala was held on Wednesday, June 8th in the Citadel Theatre’s Tucker Amphitheatre.