Schools for Salone - Schools

Alusine Kamara

Dankawali is the home village of Schools for Salone's Vice President, Alusine Kamara. It is in the far northeast of Sierra Leone, near Kabala, the main eastern town in the Koinadugu District. The District name was drawn from the kingdom of the most powerful warrior, a son of Dankawali, known as Masa Kama, who ruled the entire north eastern front of the district before the country was colonizated by England.

In early colonial days, the English taxed villages by the number of houses in them. There were 9 in Dankawali and only 5 in Kabala. The English considered making Dankawali the eastern headquarters of the District, but in the end chose Kabala. The English used their Church as a colonial administration tool and required the village chosen as the headquarters to accept the Christian Faith. Dankawali was reluctant to do this at that time.

The villages around Dankawali are very interested in education. Alusine’s father had talked to the Missionary Church Association in the early 1960s about building a primary school in the village. The MCA built and operated the school for some years, before it was transferred to Sierra Leone government administration. After 40 plus years and a civil war, the school is badly in need of repair.

Because the nearest secondary school is 18 miles away in Kabala and the difficulties students have in getting there, the villages around Dankawali (Kasunya, Badala, Tinkifera, Tumania, Momorimaria, Koinadugu, Sengbelero, Yiria and Tumania) came together to build their own secondary school. Each village has a primary school and hopes to send its graduating students to Dankawali. They estimated there will be between 150-300 students. Recently, yet another village, a little farther removed from Dankawali, also sent a deligation of elders to pledge their support for the secondary school and are now a part of the network.

Alusine’s brother is helping to coordinate the villages working together through three phases of the construction process to build 3 school buildings. 1) The collection of local materials (sand, stone and stick) is done by the people on a rotational bases. 2) The non-technical and all of the technical jobs are done by locally trained villagers in masonry and carpentry. 3) The financial efforts are managed by Alusine here in the US and will include funds for teacher salaries until the Sierra Leone Ministry of Education can assume responsibility for the school.

There are plans for water wells, but the greater focus now is on housing the rapidly growing number of students who will be coming from the surrounding villages, each 10 to 15 miles away from Dankawali.

At this time, the project has 3 school buildings in progress: 2 for classrooms and 1 for administration. However the project needs $5000 to finish the roofs before they can open the school. The group funding the project does not have the money and so Alusine has come to Schools for Salone for help to complete the project.

To learn about other Schools for Salone Projects, follow these links

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