About us- background

Our non-governmental organization was founded in Sweden 2004 with the name Vänföreningen Portee (Friends of Portee). We are working to develop the village of Portee in general, focusing on the children and together with this we also run a women project in a village named Kumra Bai Yoni. All of our projects are conducted together with our sister-organization in Sierra Leone, “Future of Sierra Leone”.

March 2007 was the first visit to Sierra Leone to on site see the work being done. Since then we have had the pleasure to visit Sierra Leone many more times. To see the children and the school is an amazing experience! It really holds a fantastic belief in the future and the will to progress.

At the same time a visit to Sierra Leone is a constant reminder of how vulnerable life is for a lot of people on this earth. Sierra Leone has faced a lot of challenges. Between 1991-2002 a civil war raged. Recently, 2014-2016, an epidemic of Ebola virus crippled the country. This together with recurrent natural disasters has affected the people of Sierra Leone in many ways.

Poverty gives a lifestyle few of us can understand, but for the people in Sierra Leone there is no other option than build from what you have.

After the war a strong feeling of getting back to normal was founded. One of the efforts were on schools for children. In Portee the Lotta Elf Primary School (LEPS) was founded in 2004 for the youngest children. The interest was big and today around 400 children are attending pre-school and classes 1-6. The need of education efforts is enormous due to the literacy being only 30 %.