Sierra Leone

Madina Village, Sierra Leone Africa

By Nathan Thomas

The country of Sierra Leone has lived through much suffering for quite a while.  There was a decade long Civil War where there were no winners just losers and then the country was hit hard by Ebola.  
  Now is the time to rebuild and the village of Madina is doing just that through education and now health care.  At first just a dream of Francis Mustapha who is from the village and has lived and taught in Fort Wayne for many years, it is now an elementary school with 390 children and money is being raised for a clinic.

I traveled to the village for 16 days last July and saw firsthand how the school is changing the village and the villages all around it.  The students love coming to school and are learning so much.  Many of their parents never went to school because over 1200 elementary schools were destroyed during the war and remained closed during the Ebola crisis. High Schools and even colleges were also destroyed. These children now have the opportunity to learn, grow and have dreams of changing their world.  Knowing the students, I have no doubt that they will.  

In May solar panels were added to the school and now the next step can be taken, the building and opening of a clinic complete with solar panels.  Right now the only medical care in the area is the school nurse.  She is an amazing nurse but there needs to be more.  Malaria is the leading cause of death for children in Western Africa. A little girl died of malaria just before we got there last year.  Last fall Mable, the school nurse, tested the children and 89 of them had malaria in their system.  This is a chronic illness and the children often miss school because of it. Money was raised and now all of the children are sleeping under mosquito nets which will help but a clinic is still needed.  A clinic will also provide a safer place for women to give birth and provide other medical care.   

I take all of this personally because I was there and hope that the clinic becomes a reality sooner rather than later. I also hope to return to Madina because it isn’t a place you can go to and leave and forget.  A part of you remains there.  If you are interested in learning more about Madina or interested in donating to the school or the clinic you can go to

Madina Village School Website

Madina Village School is the on-going fulfillment of the dream of Francis Mustapha to return to his home and build a school for the children of his village in Sierra Leone. Upon his retirement from teaching Biology in Indiana, he began spending months at a time in Madina, supervising the construction by hand of two large classroom buildings.

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video from Wane.com