Vocational School Fees Gift (Digital Download)
Your gift will pay the fees for a child to attend Vocational School, where they will learn a trade that allows them to make an income and contribute to their community.
We will email you a digital version of the gift certificate and provide the gift to a child living, or formerly living, on the streets in Sierra Leone.
Once we have identified which child will benefit from your gift we will contact you to introduce them, let you know what course they are doing and keep you updated with their progress.
How your gift has helped Laughter Africa children in the past:
For the academic year 2023/2024, we have paid for over 100 young people to attend vocational school.
One of the girls we are paying vocational school for is Isatu who came back to visit us with a heart breaking story. She was one of our old girls who we met living on the streets of Funkia in 2018. In July 2022 while she was visiting family in Lungi, her two year old baby was kidnapped by a group of bike riders. They said that the witch doctor told them that her child would give them luck. She refused to hand over her baby so they hit her in the back of the head and stole her baby for a ritual. She never saw her baby again. It was a timely reminder that witchcraft and witch doctors still have a lot of power here. To hear more about ritualistic killings, please see an old article from the BBC website.
Meanwhile 17 of our girls from Susan’s Bay and Cockle Bay graduated from vocational school in either tailoring or hairdressing in May 2023. During the ceremony we held a minute silence to remember the late Findah Moseary, who should have been graduating with her friends. Tragically she died in 2021. At the graduation ceremony, each of the girls were given a business starter pack so that they can be completely independent. Isatu won the most hardworking student award while Lombeh won the best tailor award and the best behaved tailor award. Lombeh was even offered a job at the school to be a teacher – which she happily accepted. We are super proud of all the girls!
To see one of the vocational schools that our girls attend, please watch the documentary about Laughter Africa’s work here.
Meanwhile a huge congratulations to Aminata and Alice who both graduated from Camp Women which is one of the best vocational schools in Freetown. For three years they studied hard in ‘Food and Nutrition.’ But their hard work was worth it…..
If we rewind to just over five years ago- graduating from vocational school was just a distant dream for the pair of them. We first met both girls in 2018. Aminata was only 13 at the time while Alice was 15. Aminata went on the streets after her father’s death as her mother could not afford to pay her school fees, “Sometimes I went to bed hungry. My mother was poor and could not take care of me.” Meanwhile Alice said at the time, “I want to do something with my life. I have never been to school. I was constantly rejected by people on the streets and they called me all sorts of names. I felt so lonely and didn’t know where to turn. ”
She is definitely not lonely anymore. Not only did both girls get a huge cheer from fellow classmates when they collected their certificates but both Aminata and Alice were surrounded by family members with beaming smiles and pride on their faces. It was such a lovely moment- a moment that we were honoured to share. We can’t wait to see what the world has in store for Alice and Aminata but one thing we do know for certain is that the world is their oyster. You go girls!
To see Aminata talk about her life in her own words, please watch the Laughter Africa documentary here.
Similarly a big congratulations to Emma who recently graduated from Portee Vocational School in Catering. We first met Emma living on the streets in Grafton in 2018. Since then Emma has worked tirelessly to achieve her dreams. She also got a job. She is now running a restaurant in Jui. We are extra proud of her as it is not really easy to get a job here so this is testament to her hard work and determination. We couldn’t be more proud of her if we tried.