A POEM TITLED: THE VIRTUOUS TREASURE
Oh my God!
What a virtuous treasure
Within one when she/he will stand up
To pursue the wonderful inner thoughts
In my soul
When pursuing the dwelling of virtuous treasure
Get passion for education
No matter the challenges
Watch your steps and keep your head high above sea level
Oh my God
What a Virtuous treasure!
That begins with self determination
In developing a pro-active inner mind search
With positive intentions and imagine how virtuous you will be
In writing virtuous things that guide mankind
With the pursuant of education
Virtuous treasure I will pursue
My beauty will gradually fade away
My strength will run out because age is bound to fall
But with God, my parents and good friends’ intentions
Education will safely and powerfully drive me to a destination
Of never to be forgotten in life
The virtuous treasure I will pursue
Pen makes me bring all of these from my heart
This simple poem was written by Augusta Ngagaba, a former pupil and member of the Queen of the Rosary Senior Secondary School PEN Club in Bo City. She was a Science student, aged 17 in 2016. According to the school club facilitator, Augusta is now reading at the School of Hygiene, Njala University. From the content of her poem, one could tell how the idea of establishing reading projects in schools help children to imagine the powerful role of education especially literature which outlives its creators. This is just one of the many stories of passion for reading and writing amongst our school clubs communities in the country. These invariably shape the lives of many of our children.
The idea of shaping the lives of our children could also be read in the following excerpt of an interview conducted with the president of the Our Lady of Guadalupe Senior Secondary School Club, Nyamakoro N. Marrah,…. ‘with the persistent writing and editing my letters, I started developing bit by bit. So when the Sierra Leone PEN Club writers association introduced the PEN school clubs in the North and my school, I saw myself in the mirror. Automatically, I became a member of the club in my school. One day my language arts teacher by the name of Mr. John A. Bangura asked us to write a poem and to be read during assembly. Indeed I read mine and I was on top of the list. So I started to encourage some of my colleagues who have the talent to write to come on board. Interestingly, I have won many prizes in the field of writing. For those vital reasons, I am made editor of our school bulletin and currently president of our school PEN Club.
In a nutshell, I hope the culture of reading and writing will flourish in our school more especially our country as a whole
The wish of the Sierra Leone PEN Centre from its inception had been to promote and increase interest in reading and writing and support writers in the country as a whole. This call came after the war years when PEN Sierra Leone became a chapter of PEN International in 2002. The status of writers then and literary activities in general was dwindling. Some of the prominence writers had been displaced during the war years. Many more especially journalists were killed for exercising their freedom of expression.
In one of the earlier meetings on the way forward to promoting reading and writing held at former PEN Sierra Leone office at 14A Wallace Johnson Street, Freetown, in 2003, a young and energetic man stood up in the meeting holding his hands high in the air. He was given the floor to make his point. In his statement, Aliya Abdala suggested that if PEN Sierra Leone were to promote reading and writing, then there was the need to lay the foundation block of another generation of writers in the millennium era. He narrated in his own words that the best place to get such writers is the school environment ‘where we can catch the pupils young and make them gather interest and become writers of tomorrow.’
The idea of PEN Sierra Leone School Club Programme was born. In 2004, five pilot school clubs were established in Freetown through funds from the Christian Literature Crusade (CLC) in collaboration with PEN Sierra Leone.
In 2007, the Centre received programmatic funds from PEN International to develop and expand the already existing school clubs in the country. A review meeting of the existing school clubs was held in Freetown, on the 2nd November 2007. During that meeting, some of the problems seasoned writers face in the country were discussed. In response to these problems, and to better prepare the young writers for these challenges the situation was to revert to the four reasons why the school club pilot project was launched at the US Embassy in Freetown in 2004. These are as follow:
- That writer should start at early ages. Thus the “catch them young” slogan has always been the centre’s watchword.
- That emphasis should be placed on the importance of the imagination in childhood. A reference to the Bronte family whose children began writing young out of nothing worthwhile to do and using their imagination to create kingdoms they could control.
- That children are great imitators.
- That early start in introduction to creative writing will enhance reading which will in turn improve writing skills
Over the years, PEN Sierra Leone had undertaken various programmatic funding including the beacon and civil society programmes all aimed at enhancing reading and writing in the country. The projects have mainly addressed our school clubs’ project activities and related communities in the main thematic area of social inclusion and access to reading. The various project activities include training of school club facilitators on effective school club management; creative writing competitions; erection of shelves in schools; securing and supply of books to clubs; establishing debating societies; established a reading center using a 20 f00t container; holding reading camp during ebola period; publication of club magazine, African centre exchange programmes; literary events on the importance of reading and writing.
Currently, six hundred club members in twenty selected PEN schools in the country are directly benefiting from the civil society programmes. However, thousands of children both past and continuing club members have benefited from the various activities in their communities over the years. These activities continue to create impact on the lives of the beneficiaries and their communities.
Among other things, early introduction to creative writing enable children to read widely. In this regard, our projects have helped our club members in exploring new ideas and thinking outside the box and building self-confidence, improving their communication skills and leadership roles in society.
Our observation over the years in the implementation of these projects indicate that the children who read more especially outside their prescribed text books stay in school and continue seeking higher education to tertiary level than those students who do not have passion in reading and writing.
In 2009, an independent evaluation exercise was conducted by PEN International amongst our club members in some of the schools that we operate in the country. It focused on the impact of our programmes on the children. The result was presented to the London head Office. Some of the common responses of the children state that they were more confidence and could express themselves better having gone through PEN programmes.
In 2011, former PEN President John Raulston Saul visited our centre in Freetown on his way to the PEN International Congress in Dakar, Senegal. He visited some of our school project sites including the Our Lady of Guadalupe Senior Secondary School in Lunsar. During the interactions, one club member, Mariama Nurideen Jalloh emphatically made the statement that ‘PEN made me write’ when asked what PEN has done for her.
Such statements are even made by beneficiaries who would say PEN Sierra Leone has reintroduced Pen pal programmes that enabling them to exchange letters between their colleagues. And this improves their communications skills.
Addressing students at the Azolini Multipurpose Centre in 2014 during a Prize giving ceremony, in Makeni, the PEN Club facilitator Northern Region, Samuel Fengai said PEN Centre has being committed to its programmes in their region, providing book shelves and books to schools and organizing essay competitions in order to encourage the students into the culture of reading and writing. He thanks PEN for organizing ‘such a wonderful competition and for giving such attractive prizes to the students. He said that will motivate the students not only to read the books provided by PEN but to also visit the library for more resource materials and for quiet reading time. This would eventually enable children develop more passion for reading and writing and at the end must stay in the educational arena.’
The recent establishment of the after school PEN school clubs reading and writing forum and debating societies in the schools we operate have created more opportunities for the beneficiaries to share their stories and ideas with other club members and non-club members as well. These platforms where club members would present their stories, poems and essays for criticism by their peers have enhanced the students’ self-confidence and capacity to articulate their thoughts.
During a feedback meeting held at the PEN Centre, the Freetown St. Joseph Convent Senior Secondary School teacher, Belinda Kargbo told other club facilitators PEN club activities have had positive bearing on the children over the years in the sense that some of the active club girls represent the school at inter-school literary functions including competitions. “Our club President, Isata Sesay won the National post Ebola essay competition organised by the 50/50 Women’s Group”
Some of the wider implications of these activities are seen in the development of our centre activities. Through our civil society projects, we engage not only students or beneficiaries. Burt we engage communities and literary stakeholders a lot. Also these activities, some of which enjoyed local media coverage, have earned the Centre significant recognition and placed it in good standing in the country, making it possible for the centre to establish partnerships with reputable organisations and institutions like the British Council, the US Embassy, the Ministry of Education, KARANTHA Publishers and presently the Canadian Organisation for the Development of Education (CODE).
For example, through the United States Embassy in Freetown, PEN and the University of IOWA organized a creative writing exchange programme between a group of students selected from PEN school clubs in Sierra Leone and a class of pupils in Brooks School in North Andover and HLD High School, MA in the United States. The 15 week course which started in February, 2012 involved teaching children skills in writing creative materials and exchanging these materials between the selected students of the two countries via internet through a programme called Coursekit.
At the end of the course, the five PEN Club members namely Sidratu Whyte, Safie Koroma, Khadija L. Sesay of the St Joseph Convent Secondary School, Adrain Strasser of the Sierra Leone Grammar School and Patrick B. NDawah of the Methodist Boys High School travelled and met their colleagues in the Brook school and the HLD High School in Massachusetts in the USA for the first time.
Three of these children are now attending different universities in Sierra Leone. One of them is Saffie Koroma, a second year student at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. As I put together this story of change piece, I asked Ms. Koroma how PEN School Club has impacted on her life. This is what she wrote in bullet points:
“PEN school club and PEN as a whole has impact my life in so many ways as follows;
- It helped me to discover my talent in writing which I never knew I had before joining PEN.
- It helped me know the power I have over my work as a writer.
- It helps me express my emotions through writing.
- As a very shy person, PEN helped me make friends and also express myself in front of people.
- It gave me the opportunity to visit various places both within and outside Sierra Leone.
- It helped improve my spoken and written English skills which helped me perform excellently in English when I took the public Exam. ‘
In the area of developing new generation of writers/authors, PEN Sierra Leone has been working in that direction over five years now. As at the moment, we have published fourteen titles in collaboration with the Canadian Organization for Development through Education (CODE). The project is called Reading Sierra Leone. The aim of Reading Sierra Leone is to produce locally written and illustrated books that engage children and invite them through reading and writing to think, to learn and to improve their lives. One of the authors, Sallieu Sall is PEN Club member. And the workshop is open to our Club members.
If we are to create bigger and enduring impact of the programmes on the lives of our children, we need to increase the volume of time and funding. Given the feedback we get from the club facilitators and the communities, we recommend to create more programmes that could engage the children frequently.
One of our constraints is the lack of barometer to measure impact more especially as we are dealing with human beings. And to measure how knowledge has impacted children is difficult. Generally its only time that will tell. However, through continued funding of the project. If possible increase the amount of funding to the project so we can both consolidate and expand on the project and we would surely laid the strong foundation of another generation of writers in Sierra Leone
