Preparation
I’ve an overnight flight so am making sure I have what I need for my trip today. I’ve checked out Volzone, our intranet for volunteers with all sorts of information about the country they are going to. It’s not the same for me of course as I’m only in Sierra Leone for a week, but good to see all the advice we give to our volunteers as we try to look after them before, during, and after their placements.

Just checking out the VSO Sierra Leone strategy too. We’ve been working in Sierra Leone for over 50 years. Our work there focuses on young people in the main, and on health, education, and livelihoods. I’ve just learnt that Sierra Leone is 180th out of 187 on the Human Development Index , and 70% of the population earn less than $1 a day. Sobering thoughts as I head to London Heathrow. Also conscious of what one of my team said to me who’d lived in another African country for a few years, “I’m really envious of you going to Africa for the first time, knowing all you will see and experience. Yes it’s poor in parts and life can be hard, but the colour, the music, the people!”

Day 1&2
Left a cold London on Easter Monday for an overnight flight to Freetown. Unexpectedly upgraded and sitting next to a young man from Sierra Leone who lives in Belgium who was also unexpectedly upgraded. He told me he was returning for 6 weeks, with some savings, to build a house to let. A not unusual story of diaspora as I was to learn.

Landed in the dark and scrambled for luggage with the crowd, in a very basic building with a too narrow luggage carousel. Bumped into a young midwife who I'd met when boarding, who is going to spend three months volunteering for a small charity in a rural hospital. Will put her in touch with a VSO volunteer from the Philippines who is working in the same area.

Then a water taxi, speeding across the bay, slamming the waves, maybe it was good it was dark. Travelled with other Sierra Leoneans visiting home who are coming to work on the power infrastructure. They talked of 24hr light, I thought they meant the sun and couldn't work that out, but of course they meant electricity.

After a brief stop in the hotel I was picked up to go to our office in Freetown and was very pleased to meet Peter Nderitu, the Country Director and the rest of the team, including volunteers who had just arrived and were heading off to their placements after their briefing.

Then a briefing on our health and secure livelihoods work, focusing particularly on young people, who in Sierra Leone are up to 35. I learnt about the partners we work with such as the government and UNICEF, and the necessity of the work in one of the poorest countries in the world.

A trip to the bank for cash for my trip to the field (credit cards not being too used) and a bit of falafel at the hotel before I had an early night for an early start.

Day 3
It's 06.30 and heading to Makeni, the third largest city in Sierra Leone. It's the home of the President, voted in in the peaceful elections in November, and base to multinational mining and extracting companies. It's also home to an ICS programme . The young people I met were so... how best to sum up… assured, good, committed. It's nearing the end of the placement and they told me of the work they had done with each other, with their communities. They've done talks, workshops, dramas, on food hygiene, sexual health, women's rights.

What was striking was how they talked about how much they'd learned from each other, particularly in their 'pairs', about their different lives and cultures. There's no doubt the learnings and teachings on basic health for example are needed, but mostly you're left with a sense of young lives changed forever, by working together across the globe. You can see the community leaders, teachers, political representatives of the future, just beginning their journey of changing the world for the better, starting with themselves and their community. Visited the local government hospital too where 2 of our UK volunteers, a medical husband and wife team, are nearing the end of their placement working on our health agenda. And a final stop at the midwifery school where midwife training is taking place, capacity building in action.

Day 4
It's 06.30 and I've given up on the water getting warm for the shower. Then I realise how fortunate I am to actually have running water and it doesn't seem so bad.

About to embark on another full day of meeting volunteers, partners, and seeing VSO's work in Sierra Leone. It's a long drive to our destination in the Kenema District. On the way we stop in what seems to be nowhere but is actually Mile 91, which is 91 miles from Freetown. There are a couple of breeze-block buildings, quite common, and we wind down a track to one of them. Then lots of children are in sight, and a red VSO t-shirt, this one worn by an ICS volunteer. We look at the two rooms and I learn from the principal a little about the education system, and chat to the students in an outdoor classroom.

Schooling is free in principal but there are fees and the cost of the uniforms and the lost work time. Sometimes a child, and some of the women and men I met skills training yesterday, have to face the choice of school/work, or food. My co-worker told me afterwards that there was no running water or sanitation provision at the school, not uncommon in the rural communities. The two ICS UK volunteers, and their Sierra Leonean Counterparts (as their local partners are called), talked of their job teaching at the school, what they had learned about each other, and how they would miss the students and their Counterpart. By this time the nearby primary school children had gathered and sang to us before we left.

Stopped off at a project called RADA where one of our volunteers from the Philippines is teaching enterprise skills and the place is a hive of activity – people are building, making cabinets, tailoring – all working at securing their own livelihoods for the future.

The afternoon was a visit to a district council where one of our volunteers from Uganda, Christine, is based. She is helping the council with their planning – education, health, sanitation, transport. Many of the issues are similar to the UK I thought but with so, so fewer resources. As I said goodbye to Christine we talked also of her two small children at home who her husband is taking care of and I thought how much commitment she must have to work in this field while missing her children. “I like a challenge”, she said brightly.

Day 5
A bit of breakfast and a bit of wifi to start my day in Kenema. I’ve been trying to stay in touch with office emails as I’ve travelled around and the juxtaposition of reading ‘London’ emails as the Salone (as some local people call Sierra Leone) countryside passes by, can be strange.

This morning we left to meet a District Health Management Team at a local children and maternal hospital. The project is a government one, funded by UNICEF, and VSO are in partnership and supplying volunteers. The stats for baby and maternal deaths are appalling and the focus is on trying to meet the Millennium Development Goal. I learnt about the importance of the district level medical team, and how this District of Kenema consists of 16 chiefdoms and 121 community health clinics. There were charts on the walls with all of this laid out, including the number of the population in the catchment area, and the distance from the hospital in the city. Next to this was a hand drawn map of Kenema which showed the difficulty of travel with the rough roads, woodland and distances, which all makes you see how big the challenge is in providing healthcare for pregnant women and babies.

In the afternoon I sat in on a Unicef training session where the local medical staff and volunteers were working on topics such as child nutrition. Later that night I met with over a dozen volunteers who are working on this Unicef programme. They come from the UK, Ireland, Africa and the Philippines. They’re working with the district and local staff on capacity building so that there are more trained local medical staff. The adaptability, resilience and commitment of the volunteers was very evident as we talked about the programme and what they were doing with their Sierra Leonean colleagues to reduce these preventable deaths.

Later that morning I visited a swamp. The project of the government, IFAD, and a VSO volunteer from Kenya, is to work on the swamp and the rice crop so the crop takes less time to grow and there can be more harvests. It’s a vital part of providing enough food, food security, and with the involvement of the local farmers, developing livelihoods, a key theme of VSO.

Heading back to Freetown tomorrow after 3 days and nights in the provinces.

Day 6
Long drive back to Freetown. As we go we see local markets where trading is taking place. For some miles in each direction we see solitary walkers, often women, who are walking many miles from their own communities with their local goods, to do the trade at the market, then the often long walk home.

Day 7
Sunday dawned, a day of rest. I did some reading then made my way down to the nearby beach. The waves were great and the water was ‘sweet’ as one of the local women said. It’s certainly the warmest bit of the Atlantic I’ve ever swum in! Think I was a bit of a spectacle. Afterwards I went to see a group of young people rehearse for a film they’re shooting next week. The rehearsal was in a derelict half built house and they were doing scenes. It’s a Sierra Leonean version of Romeo and Juliet.

Day 8
The last day working in Sierra Leone. We had a couple of important meetings today; firstly we met with the BBC correspondent to talk about getting some coverage of our work – ICS, the national and international volunteers, and the work we are doing on health and livelihoods. Next stop was the High Commissioner. Unfortunately we ran out of fuel and were already running late, so we flagged down a shared taxi. Couldn’t really count the number of people already in the car, ten I think. I squeezed in next to a soldier and Peter Nderitu, the Country Director shared the front seat with one or two others, as the rest of the bemused occupants looked on, and we raced up the hill. We outlined VSO’s work to the High Commissioner and ways we thought we could work even closer together. Then the last few hours working with the team in the office. The generator ran out of fuel, there’s a fuel crisis off and on, so no electricity or emails or anything like that. ‘Kind of a regular occurrence’ I was told. Gave me a fresh appreciation of the different kinds of circumstances we all work in and how our work and access needs to be designed for such a wide range of situations.

The sun is setting now, nearly time for the journey back to London.

Day 9
Left Freetown at 06.30 and had what seems like a fairly typical journey: water taxi broke down; mini bus wouldn’t start; no power at the airport so all the passengers of a full plane were hand processed; landed at Heathrow and signal failure on the Piccadilly line. Home now and appreciating running and clean water, electricity at the flick of a switch; flushing toilets. Will get in touch with all the volunteers I met, to thank them, and get case studies so we can tell their stories of how they as volunteers are tackling poverty.

Homebound thoughts
A lot is running through my mind and heart as I leave Sierra Leone. In fact I haven’t thought about much else since I boarded the plane on Easter Monday. Being 180/187 on the Human Development Index and with the changes going on, it’s certainly a developing country and all that that means. It is very poor in parts as you might expect from that rating. There are far too many preventable deaths, particularly babies and mothers.

The volunteers are amazing I think, adaptable, resilient, committed. The partners, the local NGOs, the UK and Sierra Leone government, the local medical and education and training staff, it’s not possible to do this work without working with them. VSO Sierra Leone, who work with such commitment on this agenda of tackling poverty in their country every day, and VSO staff in the UK, Kenya, Ireland and the Philippines who send volunteers. And the people of Salone: committed to improving their country and always being warm and friendly. But of course the point of VSO’s work is the development, the impact, fewer deaths, securer livelihoods, better education and training, young people with life chances. The three words I leave with are: partnership, sustainability and development.