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Opening Our Orphanage for Girls

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Imagine taking a dream from nothing but a piece of land that needed to be cleared four years ago, to an incredible place of joy for 30 orphan girls in Sierra Leone. That's been the commitment of Emmanuel Kamara of Kambia, Sierra Leone. He has built an orphanage that will open its doors in September, coinciding with the start of the new school year. I met Emmanuel two months ago when I visited Sierra Leone for my first time. He told me how he has personally supported as many as 25 orphan girls for the last four years, paying their school fees and building the orphanage with his every extra​ available dollar. I returned to Kambia a week ago, to support Emmanuel in his orphanage program and his dream to provide an education for orphan girls who otherwise have nothing. Since my first visit to Kambia in June, he has installed flush toilets and hired a local carpenter to build 30 beds. Now comes the final touches - - getting mattresses, bedding and pillows for the 30 beds. That's what this fundraiser is for. We estimate each mattress-and-bedding set will cost about 50 dollars. Back in June, I asked Emmanuel why he committed to building an orphanage in his hometown of Kambia, population 60,000 and headquarters for Kambia district. As the second-born of four siblings, he remembers how his father had pulled his older sister from school so Emmanuel and his three brothers could attend instead. Girls deserve education through secondary school, too, he began realizing as a teenager. Sierra Leone is the world's 14th poorest country by International Monetary Fund rankings in 2017. The Ebola crisis of 2014 and 2015 left more than 12,000 Sierra Leone children without at least one caregiver, according to the Street Child NGO in its 2015 report. More than 3,000 children were completely orphaned by Ebola, including 301 within Kambia district. Sierra Leone's orphans, particularly Ebola orphans, live with stigma and trauma, Street Child notes. Four of these Ebola orphans are among the 25 girls that Emmanuel has been supporting. We are counting the days to September 6, when the next school term begins. Emmanuel wants to open the orphanage's doors in time to bring the girls together, with a matron. The orphanage will provide a place of safety, security and support. Each girl currently lives with a guardian or other family member, and they attend as many as six different schools. Once they are living together, a driver will drop and pick up each girl at her school using the orphanage's van. But first, the place needs 30 mattresses, 30 sets of bedding and 30 pillows. Please consider sending a donation through this GoFundMe campaign. Your contribution will help bring joy and change to the lives of 30 orphan girls in Sierra Leone.

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Donations 

  • Anon non
    • $11 
    • 6 yrs
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Organizer

Katherine Cassidy
Organizer
Lubec, ME

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