Trip to BRAC in Sierra Leone

BRAC rented an office off the main road in Freetown that also serves as a residence for the few Bangladeshi staff who were sent to start up the nonprofit microfinance, health, agriculture and livestock programs.

Shah Alam is the Country Representative for BRAC and the head of the newly established Microfinance company. He has been with BRAC over two decades and has both operational experience in microfinance as well as a training background.

Tapon Kumar Das was the first staff person from BRAC sent to Sierra Leone last April. He has worked with BRAC 26 years and has a background in program monitoring, accounting, audit.

Main road in Lunsar, 3 hours north of Freetown.

(above) New staff for the Waterloo Branch: Credit Officer Marionett Pratt, Branch Manager Umu Kapange and Credit Officer Zainab Salriy. All were first contracted by BRAC to survey the local community in this area to identify lowest income households who were not currently being served by any other microfinance organization. They told me how they had to overcome people’s suspicion and gain their trust. They also loved the work as they learned so much about the way to talk to people and about the real poverty situation in their country.

I dropped in on a Community Health Volunteer training in Masiaka Branch. BRAC’s Area Health Extension Coordinator, Alimatu Kamrau, dynamically led the training session with 25 volunteers. She is a nurse and was going over health prevention and education messages that the volunteers will share with their neighbors in a door-to-door outreach program. She got people to actively participate and share what they were learning to reinforce the main points. In time, they will also carry some basic health commodities with them to sell at a small mark up to community members.

Every training included some singing and dancing to keep things lively.

Jenna Ansumana is a new Branch Manager who completed a degree in Forestry and taught secondary school for a year prior to joining BRAC. She said she left “to work with the people in my country and to know my country more. ” She was attracted to the idea of leaving Freetown and working upcountry. Aida Aiabella is a newly hired Credit Officer who has 12 years of education; she also first conducted a survey of her area that helped to identify potential Community Health Volunteers and other target households for the program before being recruited by the microfinance company.

Roadside vendors can supply fresh fruits, cool green coconuts to drink since there are few businesses along the 3 hour drive from Freetown to Port Loko. And always, outside any BRAC branch office, a group of curious children will gather. While the litany of challenges facing Sierra Leone seems endless at times, the beauty of its people and countryside leave one feeling very hopeful about its future.