Help Sahr Return Home to Sierra Leone

We are Aiyah, Tamba, Xia, and Satta, the grateful children of Sahr "The Brain" Adimoenje Josiah-Faeduwor. He earned this nickname in his home village in Sierra Leone, West Africa, where, since his youth, his peers admired his thirst for knowledge and dedication to his education. At age 21, he arrived in the United States in the early 70s with a B.A. in Agriculture from Fourah Bay College in Freetown, the Capital of Sierra Leone, and the first university-level institution on the continent of Africa.

In fewer than 20 years, our father spent his first two decades in the U.S., rigorous and porously dedicated to academia, and amassed 5 additional master's level degrees in the engineering and business fields between Clemson University, West Virginia University, and Howard University before having five children with our mother, before their separation, an emotionally and otherwise challenging process within which a family court judge granted him full custody of us all.

As an adjunct professor, a working engineer, and now a single father, despite the dream he sought to pursue since his childhood, he had to put those ambitions and everything he had worked so hard for up until this juncture in life aside to be a fully present full-time father two three growing boys and two young girls.

Our family went through everything imaginable, from dependency on government resources for our survival to the perpetual challenge of steady employment in such a time-demanding career, struggles within the juvenile criminal justice system, substance abuse issues, and experiences of neglect and other hardships, all which ultimately brought us all to Boston and our highly educated father to a path of entrepreneurship and re-direction. The sacrifices he made yielded the best results he could have for our well-being: we were raised well, with values, faith, and goodness that could only come from being raised by a parent who took us all upon his shoulders and fought to ensure we had a fighting chance to survive and thrive in this country and this world. Today, we are a Brown & MIT graduate, A Black Womxn in Coding, A Mother and Community Educator, a Father in his second year of Recovery with a beautiful 7-year-old joy, and a Brother who, although incarcerated, remains in our hearts and in our hope of one day being free.

The goal of this fundraiser is to cover the $5000 cost of a shipping container with all our father's worldly possessions and his flight to Sierra Leone to the home he built for him/us, allowing him the chance to retire back home where his dream was incepted, returning a voluminous Brain to a vital community that still can utilize him -- as at 75 years old, he still very much has the desire and physical and mental ability to give more to his community, his country and the legacy of our family.