COFA 2024: A Look Back

Growing Family Prosperity

In 2024, Growing Family Prosperity, COFA’s agriculture program, completed two full years. We started with 30 families in 6 villages in 2023, joined by 25 families in 5 other villages in 2024. COFA’s financial support is limited to the first year, but Mohamed Sesay, the agronomist program manager, and our small team of extension workers continued to visit and provide advice to the “class of 2023” throughout their second year as they planted seeds saved from their first year All 55 families succeeded, producing a substantial surplus.

A new feature in 2024 was village-level composting of organic fertilizer in all 11 communities to reduce reliance on expensive chemical fertilizer. It’s also a key to long-term sustainability.

Nourishing Young Minds and Bodies

July and August are traditionally difficult months in Sierra Leone, with heavy rainfall, little income, and even less to eat. “Nourishing” was COFA’s first program—actually pre-COFA in 2020, through a GoFundMe campaign. Like the other projects, it was conceived by Karim Kamara, who leads the programs in Sierra Leone, as a one-month respite for primary school kids to receive some high-quality teaching during the month of August—for many, their first school experience—and nutritious lunches. In 2024, 12 primary schools with more than 3000 kids had free classes and daily nutritious meals throughout August.

Starting in 2022, COFA added a July program for junior secondary school students to prepare them for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) at the end of the month. The BECE is a nationwide exam that pupils must pass to progress to high school, yet many students are ill-prepared for it by their regular school curriculum. Failing the BECE signals the end of formal education, with lifelong, profound consequences, particularly for girls.

In 2024, the July program served 1,000 students in five junior secondary schools. Although we do not have precise data, according to the authorities in the five schools served by Nourishing in 2024, the pre-Nourishing pass rate averaged 40%. This year, the documented BECE pass rates were 90%, 100%, 90%, 95%, and 45% in those five schools. Karim has met with the leaders from the school at the bottom of the list and is working with them to determine why more than half the students failed, and what is needed to improve in 2025.

The benefits of Nourishing go well beyond the kids: teachers and cooks are paid for July and August, and the rice for meals (1000 bags this year) is purchased from local farmers. There is a graduation ceremony in early September, where all the kids get certificates and COFA supports scholarships to pay school fees for the coming year, especially for standout kids who otherwise would not be able to go to school. Karim nudges up the number every year, and this year, we gave 100 scholarships.

King Kama Primary School

For 10 months of the year, COFA supports the 200 students and 20 staff of King Kama Primary School in Lunsar. We pay the teachers a stipend of $75 per month, which is all the pay they receive. Before COFA began this support three years ago, the teachers were all volunteers. We also pay for a nutritious lunch every day, including purchasing the food and stipends for the local women who cook every day in the outdoor kitchen over an open fire.

In 2024, we also provided funds to repair part of the school building that had disintegrated in the torrential rains.

COFA Scholar Abdul Hassan Kamara, MPH

I’m pleased and very proud to report that Abdul completed his Master of Public Health (MPH) coursework and dissertation in 2024 and was awarded his degree in February this year. His dissertation topic was “The impact of water disinfection on diarrhea illness in mining communities in Marampa Chiefdom.” With a huge burden of water-borne disease in Sierra Leone, this is a very important topic.

I introduced you to Abdul last January, when he was several months into his degree at Njala University, supported by COFA. Abdul comes from Magbala, a small village in northern Sierra Leone. He was recognized by teachers early on as extremely bright, which led to a move to Lunsar for further education. He remained close to his family in Magbala, and when he found that his brother was sick with Ebola in 2015, he traveled home, where his brother died in his arms. And then Abdul became infected and nearly died. He resolved to devote himself to public health and worked on Ebola research with NGOs while the epidemic lasted. He wanted to do more and saw an MPH as a way forward. Please read his whole story in the earlier blog.

Bike Libraries (and clean water)

The first weekend of July, COFA co-funded a dual mission to start a bike library for students and deliver bleach-making equipment and training to Bonthe, a remote coastal fishing town on Sherbro Island in Sierra Leone’s southern province.  To get there and back, Karim and Abdul (the COFA scholar profiled above and in a previous blog post) and the team traveled more than 200 miles over difficult terrain before returning home to Lunsar.

…and More

• The outstanding student Adama Sesay completed her first year at the University of Makeni
• COFA funded a new building at SLMB Primary School
• We provided funds for a Christmas celebration for the entire Magbala Community, with music and plentiful food.
• COFA provided funds for a loan (through Karim’s microfinance program, ReSeed) to entrepreneur Neneh Conteh for a new small restaurant in the town of Bo—”Call U Padi”—meaning  “Call Your Friend.” Apparently, the calls have worked because Neneh’s restaurant is thriving.

Summing Up

I’m so grateful to everyone working to make COFA’s projects successful on the ground in Sierra Leone, and everyone nearer to home who has donated to make those projects possible. I take very seriously the need to steward our resources carefully. So far, all of our projects have produced results that have lived up to or exceeded my expectations despite the challenges involved. In 2024, COFA improved the lives of close to 4,000 people—most of them children. That is something to be very proud of.