How time flies

In some ways the past year has both flown by and seemed like an eternity. We departed for our adventure, to help those less fortunate than ourselves, on the 25th October 2007. You can see the news item on departure day below. Brings back waves of emotions I’m sure, and makes the passage of time feel so quick. The month of the trip seemed like a year in itself!

Departure Day BBC Look North Feature

Feelings then and now – post your comments

As we all take time to reflect on the past twelve months, I think it would be really good to take the time to post your feelings from this time last year as well as now. You could include some thoughts about the work we embarked upon as well as some reflections on your personal journeys since arriving back from Sierra Leone.

To get you started, I’ve collated together some footage which I think is mostly unseen footage. You can probably see why, but I thought it would be interesting and entertaining on this 1st anniversary. Seems to include rather a lot of me, so you can see how much I was edited out of the final film! Sit back and enjoy/cringe/weep!

Unseen Footage

Let us not forget 

For those we have helped, things have changed since the addition of the vehicles to the aid agencies. This post contains details of the support they have provided and the difference they have made. But the picture is not all rosy. Rita Edmond from Primed is struggling financially with her commitment to the school her friends and family run. They rent out the vehicle to raise money to support the school but times are hard for them and we will be running an appeal to help her soon. Below are some pictures of her vehicle in action with the children.

 

Extracts from reports from HANCI and the St. George Foundation

HANCI - Impact on the Street children’s project in Bo

Since its arrival in November, the vehicle has been making an invaluable contribution towards the attainment of the objectives of the project especially the tracing and reunification of beneficiaries. Before the arrival of this vehicle, social workers encountered great difficulty in tracing the families of street children. Many of these families had fled to distant places during the war so it was very time consuming and costly to trace them if one does not have their own means of transport. Social workers used to take almost three months in tracing the family of street child especially for families that were located far away from Bo.

However, the arrival of the vehicle has brought about dramatic changes in the project in the reunification and follow up processes. With this dynamic machine, social workers can now promptly follow on information about the whereabouts of parents of street children in the remote concerns of the Southern province. We now spend just a couple of days in tracing families in distant places which hitherto used to take months in achieving. It is now possible to reunify children with their parents as soon as they could be located.

Download the full report here

The HANCI vehicle in action

 

St. George Foundation

From the date of donation onto this present moment, St. George Foundation has observed a number of distinct achievements such as:

• The vehicle is used for patrolling in and out of the city for identifying street children and recruiting them at the centre where they will undergo counseling and rehabilitation.

• The vehicle is used to reunify children with their parent/care takers. And the reunification is done in the Western Area and the provinces. since the time this vehicle was donated to us, all the staff and children demonstrated a great deal of excitement.

More so, we say so many thanks and appreciation to Hull Freedom Trail team for the good thing they have done for us as this vehicle as created a great impact in the standard of the organization, without the donation of this vehicle, it would been a great constrain for the organisation. As we are praying that God will provide more for them and they will put us in mind for any further assistance.

Download the full report here

Pictures of the St. George vehicle seen around town

(above) 25 children in the back of ‘Hannah More’ on their way to the beach on Christmas Day. Photo Steve Tong.