McNally School Partnership

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.