Contacts and Links

Contacts

Warwick, UK

Bo, Sierra Leone

  • Chairman –
  • Vice – Teresa Bangali
  • Secretary – Alpha Bah
  • Assistant – Jennifer Abdulai
  • Financial Secretary – Eleanor Smith Sam
  • Social Secretary – Alfred Kanneh
  • Assistant – Doris Ama

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School

One World Link AGM, February 2017

2016 was a busy and very satisfactory year. At the AGM we heard how activities bloomed at both the Bo and UK ends of the link as Sierra Leone emerged from the Ebola crisis. We welcomed teachers, committee members and the Chair of the district council from Bo and a return visit by teachers to Bo will take place in February.

One World Link AGM

2016 was a busy and very satisfactory year. At the AGM we heard how activities bloomed at both the Bo and UK ends of the link as Sierra Leone emerged from the Ebola crisis. We welcomed teachers, committee members and the Chair of the district council from Bo and a return visit by teachers to Bo will take place in February.

Margaret Lemoh speaking about Bo Children’s Hospital at the AGM

Margaret Lemoh introduced us to Bo Children’s Hospital. This opened in 2012, having been initiated by her husband, paediatrician Dr Lemoh who came from Bo originally. The staff and management are all Sierra Leonian and it is now constantly busy. The small inpatients ward is full and they have a new isolation unit. Most of the conditions they treat are preventable (burns, malaria, measles and malnutrition for example) so they have longer-term plans for an outreach programme. One World Link assisted in the highly successful fund-raising at the Leamington pantomime. The hospital was chosen by Jane Knight as the beneficiary, in her capacity as Chair of Warwick District Council, and more than £6,000 was raised.

Update on the Waste Project

Why would a friendship link like One World Link become involved in developing the waste disposal system for the City of Bo? The answer is that we have been able to bring together specialists from our own county with our friends in Bo City Council.

The Waste Project continues to grow

Why would a friendship link like One World Link become involved in developing the waste disposal system for the City of Bo? The answer is that we have been able to bring together specialists from our own county with our friends in Bo City Council.

As you may have read in past articles, it all started with a study of the needs of the Council, then developed into a pilot project that has now become a full-blown internationally funded programme from our very own government.

The pilot showed that a skip type of collection service for this community was the right way to go. No real room to have large lorries moving between households, so now Bo’s rubbish is collected in skips. Each skip is strategically placed around the city to accommodate as much of the population as possible, (more skips will always be welcomed). Each location has a minimum of two skips to enable both garden and food waste to be separated from the general waste after all the dry recycles are removed. This is the principle of the operation, but in reality it does not work fully, thus still more behaviour change is need to Waste disposal – a national flagship project Glenn Fleet returns to Bo to find that the project has continued to develop despite the Ebola outbreak get users to separate the material (it will come in time).

At the front end of the operation a youth organisation, Klin Bo Services, are contracted to gather waste door-to-door for a small fee or, if the residents do not want to pay, they may take their own waste to the skips. The process of sorting the recycles forms part of the youth organisation’s contract and they can sell on the recycles.

The council then take the skips to official disposal site. This site is presently being developed to accommodate not just the disposal of the general waste, but also to process the green waste into compost. Some £300,000 will be spent on this part of the project, which includes the development of the road, new building, a machine to shred the green waste and a weighbridge. On top of this, two second-hand skip lorries have been purchased. These lorries are well built and should last for many years if looked after. Only a small proportion of the city is covered so far and there is much to do to expand the scheme and to make it sustainable in the long term but a major triumph is that it never stopped during the Ebola crisis and the Ebola outbreak is now over, fingers crossed.

Recycling aluminium

Recycling and re-use are important aspects of the project. Fifteen small local enterprises are now involved in recycling waste and turning it into a profit. They came up with a variety of ideas and were finally chosen for project support in open competitions. Their ideas range from composting waste to making handbags, pots, slippers and bio-charcoal, and even making dolls’ houses out of paper waste. A potentially large industry could come from manufacturing pavestones out of waste plastic.

The four-year project is managed by Bo City Council with WHH of Germany, and is funded by £3.2 million of British aid, a long way to go. For more detail, including some excellent video, see the project Facebook page: Aluminium waste is turned into cooking pots.

 

The Clean Streets of Bo

The streets of Bo City are cleaner than ever thanks to their waste management programme in which One World Link and Warwickshire County Council have played a vital role. A photographic report by DFID (UK government aid) shows litter–free streets in all parts of the city.

A successful clean-up operation.

The streets of Bo City are cleaner than ever thanks to their waste management programme in which One World Link and Warwickshire County Council have played a vital role. A photographic report by DFID (UK government aid) shows litter–free streets in all parts of the city. OWL and WCC supported Bo City Council in setting up a pilot project for waste management and now that project has been extended with support from DFID with results that you can see in these pictures. See their report…

Day of the African Child 2016

In June 2016 St Anthony’s Primary School in Leamington Spa was host to 500 children from 15 local schools celebrating the International Day of the African Child. Each school has a link with a school in Bo (Sierra Leone) through One World Link (OWL) which has been promoting friendship and mutual learning between Bo and Warwick District for over 35 years.

500 children celebrate the Day of the Africa Child, 2016

On Thursday 16th June St Anthony’s Primary School in Leamington Spa was host to 500 children celebrating the International Day of the African Child.

The participating children came from 15 primary schools in Leamington and Warwick, each of which has a partner linked school in Bo (Sierra Leone). The links are made possible through local charity One World Link (OWL) which has been promoting friendship and mutual learning between Bo District (Sierra Leone) and Warwick District for over 35 years. The school links are maintained through activities such as annual teacher exchanges, children sharing work and projects, pen friendships, school clubs, teacher and children’s friendships and teacher training delivered in Sierra Leone.

The Parade

The Day of the African Child celebration saw children enjoying a joyous day of workshops to learn more about Africa and celebrate their links with schools in Sierra Leone. After a grand parade round the field in which the children processed with flags and banners proclaiming their school links, the children participated in a number of workshops – singing, dancing, music, sports, art and African storytelling. After a picnic lunch everyone gathered in the marquee for a Skype link with the Day of the African Child school celebrations in Bo. It was a special moment when 500 children here started waving and cheering as they saw children in Bo on the 40inch TV which had been set up specially for the video call. They heard a Bo school child delivering a speech about the value of the school partnerships, then sang a popular song in the Krio language called Tel am tenki.

Hello Bo! Skype call

As part of the Day of the African Child, schools had also participated in the ‘Send My Friend to School’ initiative which campaigns to give every child the education that is their right. At the end of the day everyone gathered in the marquee for the grand finale where all the children joined in the songs and dances they had learned during the day. MP Chris White received the pupils’ campaign messages, eloquently expressed by some Year 6 ambassadors from St Anthony’s.

TTIP, Trade and the Developing World

Two speakers came to speak to One World Link and its friends. One was Yash Tandon, a distinguished academic, campaigner and international negotiator, and the other was Robert Elliot, a professor of economics at Birmingham University.

The idea of the evening was to give everyone an insight into TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

OWLTALK on Thursday 5 September 2015

Two speakers came to speak to One World Link and its friends. One was Yash Tandon, a distinguished academic, campaigner and international negotiator, and the other was Robert Elliot, a professor of economics at Birmingham University.

The idea of the evening was to give everyone an insight into TTIP – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. This controversial agreement between the US and the EU is seen by some as the key to unlocking wealth for participating countries, and by others as a license for multinational corporations to dominate governments and the public even more than they already do.

Robert Elliot started the evening by sketching out all the arguments in favour of free trade – and by extension of TTIP, which aims to remove barriers to trade between the US and Europe. He did this in a measured, sometimes quite technical way, taking us through mainstream economic arguments and evidence for the beneficial effects of free trade. It was quite clear that he was deliberately setting up a series of targets for Yash to tackle.

However, Yash took a different course. When it came to his turn he was more concerned to outline the arguments made in his new book “Trade is War” rather than tackling the specifics of TTIP. This made for something of a mismatch between the presentations, but was nonetheless very interesting. Yash’s argument is that trade has always been used by rich countries to keep themselves up and poorer countries down. In his view there is no such thing as economics or economists (though he does allow the existence of “political economists”). Economics as practiced by the likes of Rob, he inferred, was actually just a veil for power.  Power is all that matters in these matters – exercise of power and resistance to power.

There was then a chance for Rob to respond and for questions from the audience. This was perhaps the most stimulating part of the evening. Audience contributions were well informed and to the point, ranging from technical queries about economic method to the plaintive question of “so what can we do to make things better”.

Again TTIP took a back seat. Yash elaborated on his previous arguments, backed up by his own experience as a negotiator in the Doha trade round and his impressive work as grassroots activist.

Rob continued valiantly to play the role of realist, quietly questioning some of Yash’s more idealistic/apocalyptic pronouncements. It was clear that Rob actually shared a fair few of Yash’s views.

In answer to the question of what we can do in the face of TTIP and other seemingly inexorable forces, the answer seemed to be to encourage local and small-scale trading initiatives as a bulwark against the multinationals. Modern technology means that small scale operators can be just as effective as the giants.

Since One World Link is built on the idea of local communities developing an unmediated relationship with each other, this message went down pretty well.

Local Government Group Projects

Local council involvement has slowly grown in recent years as the benefits to both partners have become clearer. There is now a great deal of excitement building following the visits Bo of the Environmental Health Officer from Warwick District, Waste Management and Finance Officers from Warwickshire County and an ex-President of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

Local Government Group Projects

The old Central Dump

Local council involvement has slowly grown in recent years as the benefits to both partners have become clearer. There is now a great deal of excitement building following the visits Bo of the Environmental Health Officer from Warwick District, Waste Management and Finance Officers from Warwickshire County and an ex-President of the Royal Town Planning Institute. Continue reading “Local Government Group Projects”

Local Government Group

A new kind of partnership is slowly growing at local government level. It is one with potential benefits for local citizens and council staff in different parts of the world. These new international partnerships are between councils not just within Europe but also in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They promote mutual support and understanding between their citizens and officers. Their ultimate aims are: to improve efficiency, to encourage collaboration on global issues such as poverty and environmental degradation, to strengthen local democracy and to raise global awareness.

Local Government Group

Local Government and International Partnerships.

A new kind of partnership is slowly growing at local government level. It is one with potential benefits for local citizens and council staff in different parts of the world. These new international partnerships are between councils not just within Europe but also in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They promote mutual support and understanding between their citizens and officers. Their ultimate aims are: to improve efficiency, to encourage collaboration on global issues such as poverty and environmental degradation, to strengthen local democracy and to raise global awareness.

One example of this new approach is to be found in Warwickshire.
Warwick District, Warwickshire County and Leamington Town Councils are all linked with Bo City Council in Sierra Leone as part of a 26 year relationship (One World Link), which was originally started by members of the local communities in Bo and Warwick1. It was supported from the outset by Warwick District Council (WDC). Bo City Council came on board in 2004 when Sierra Leone had its first truly democratic local elections since the 1970s.

Over the last 5 years, since the end of the Civil War in Sierra Leone, local council involvement has slowly grown as the benefits to both partners have become clearer. There is now a great deal of excitement building up as the environmental health officer from Warwick District, waste management and finance officers from Warwickshire County and an ex-president of the Royal Town Planning Institute prepare to leave for Bo in November. Bo City is sending its Chief Administrator to Warwick in October so that he can meet his counterparts and exchange ideas with them. These visits will set the stage for a long term plan of cooperation. On top of this, Leamington Spa is now officially twinned with Bo at council level.

So what started this innovative approach to strengthening local government? And what are the expected outcomes?

It all began in 1981, when a Community Link (One World Link – OWL) was formed between Warwick and Bo Districts. It was set up to try and foster understanding of life in an African country and of the very different culture and environment in which our African friends operate. The emphasis was always on individual relationships and practical matters, rather than fund raising and aid. The initiative was supported and assisted by District Councillors, but there was no formal civic link initiated at that stage. The informal relationship has continued ever since. However, until 2004 the local council in Bo was composed of central government appointees and they were not very interested in the link.

The war in Sierra Leone in the 1990’s was tragic not only because of the appalling human cost but also because of the mindless destruction of the country’s fragile infrastructure. Throughout the war the friendship link survived but without much practical exchange. So in 2001, after the ceasefire, the Mayor of Leamington, decided to find out if the partnership could be restarted and whether the local councils could play a stronger role. He was also a District Councillor and his visit reopened interest and activities in both councils.

With support from the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF), the Deputy Town Clerk of Bo Town Council (as it was called in 2001) visited Warwick District for a programme of familiarisation and awareness raising. He met officers from the District and Town and County
1 For the purpose of this article Warwick refers not just to Warwick town but to Warwick District which includes Warwick, Leamington and Kenilworth towns as well as rural villages. Warwickshire is made up of 5 Districts which include Warwick District.

Education Group

There are nine primary schools and one secondary school in each district with links to the other district. We have built up a collection of material that can be provided to schools

Education Group

There are fifteen primary schoDay_of_the_African_childols in Bo linked with corresponding schools in the UK. The schools enjoy a joint celebration of the Day of theAfrican Child in June. We have exchange visits by teachers, some funded by the British Council, and have built up a large collection of materials for schools – see our Education pages. For more information about the schools group and school linking, please email our Schools Coordinator