FoRUT Sierra Leone has handed over a newly built school, Bishop Keili Memorial Junior Secondary School, and supplied learning materials to Magbenka. The handover took place on the 23rd May, and attracted future pupils of the secondary school, parents from the eight cluster villages, local authorities headed by the Paramount Chief Ndomawa Bauya, NGOs, the Chairman of the District Council and the Deputy Director of Education, Moyamba District.
At the handover ceremony, women were singing songs connoting the end of teenage pregnancy, child labour and increased peer pressure, as had been the case when children were sent to relatives in other towns to attend school. This had resulted in increased drop out in school. The Deputy Director of Education said “I am very pleased with what FoRUT is doing in the education sector, especially in the lives of the children of this nation.”
The Chairman of the Moyamba District Council expressed that he was impressed, coming for the first time into that part of the interior of Moyamba district to see such development done by FoRUT Sierra Leone. He also reiterated that Moyamba ranked last in the Sierra Leone’s Development survey in 2013. He concluded that in the next country survey, Moyamba will rank first with the booming of diversified development projects.
The former school was a make- shift, Bamboo Hut, founded in 2008 by the Sierra Leone Church Mission as a felt need for the communities, whose children had to walk 15 kilometers to attend a secondary school in a neighbouring town, Bauya. The provision of a six classroom school building in the Magbanka community, with qualified teachers and a conducive learning environment, came at a time the children needed it most. The Rainy Season, which comes with a heavy down pour of rain!!!