On August 30th the Develop Africa Sierra Leone Computer Lab received twenty-one new computers for the lab.  Twenty computers are for the students and one of the new computers is for the teacher.  This would not have been possible without generous supporters like you!

Students in Freetown are looking forward to starting school this year because you helped cover their school fees making school possible for 86 students. Of those 86 students 46 were primary school students (nursery school through class 6) and 40 of those students were in secondary school (Junior Secondary school through Senior Secondary School 3).

These 86 students also each received a book bag containing notebooks,  erasers, pens & pencils, crayons, a ruler, an umbrella, and a pencil sharpener. 

Computer networking and hardware courses are becoming increasingly popular in universities, polytechnical institutions, postsecondary colleges, and private training institutions worldwide because of the high demand for people with computer networking and hardware skills. The DASL Computer Lab is now offering a computer hardware & networking course. The learning-by-doing approach is an essential component in courses on computer networking and hardware fundamentals.

Thanks in part to your support, Sahr, a talented artist in Freetown received quality paint and paintbrushes.   Sahr is full of potential and loves to paint on canvas, however, good quality paint and paintbrushes are scarce to non-existent for purchase in Sierra Leone.

Sahr was delighted to receive the paint and paintbrushes. The photo below shows the canvas painting that he is working on using the paint and brushes that you helped provide. In this video, he sends a word of appreciation to you.

Thanks in part to your ongoing support, the Develop Africa Sierra Leone (DASL) team along with African Girls Code launched an eight-week pilot program to provide free coding. 

The purpose was to introduce African girls to the male-dominated world of programming and encourage young women to pursue a future in computer science and other STEM-related fields.

31 secondary school-aged girls in Freetown, Sierra Leone participated in the pilot program. 

The goals for this pilot launch were to:

Volunteer, Breyden Stanton, shares her experience as a volunteer the past couple of months at Develop Africa.

Nearly 1 in 4 girls of primary school age are out of school in sub-Saharan Africa.  There are currently 5.5 million more out-of-school girls of primary school age than boys, worldwide.

The barriers that deter children from attending primary school vary across and within countries but are often associated with poverty, geographic remoteness, armed conflict, lack of school infrastructure, and poor-quality education. Moreover, these obstacles often interact with gender inequality to intensify learning disadvantages for marginalized girls.

One of the future leaders that your generous donations have helped support is Franklyn. Franklyn has been a part of the Develop Africa sponsorship program since he was 9 years old in class 5.  His father has not been a part of his life since he was very young, and his mom struggled to send him and two older brothers and one younger brother to school. 

Thanks to your ongoing support multiple vocational trainees, like Mariatu, are getting the training they need to empower themselves and become self-reliant because of your support.  

Mariatu is a current vocational trainee and expresses why this opportunity to receive this training is important to her saying

Thanks in part to your ongoing support, the Develop Africa Sierra Leone (DASL) team held another girls’ mentoring program on the topic of entrepreneurship (part two).  Twenty-six young ladies between the ages of 10-20 years old in Freetown attended June's mentoring session.

The topic of entrepreneurship was covered by speakers, Luz G. and Diana K. C.