Back Home in Sierra Leone!

Well, we arrived safely back in Sierra Leone last week and now we have travelled up to Kabala, where we will be working for the summer. It's great to be back and reunite with friends and family, and everyone we worked with last year - I am always amazed and how genuinely happy people are to see you when you come back. The weather is much cooler in Kabala too, which is a nice change from the blistering heat of Freetown. We've already had two meetings with community members about the Foundation - one with our friends in Freetown, and one with Pastor Maxwell, the youth Pastor here in Kabala. Both meetings were really positive, and we gained a lot of feedback and support from everyone, as well as a lot of excitement for the program. It's great to see that the people here are so receptive and willing to work with us, and it's even more amazing to see that this program will hopefully deal with one of the biggest needs in Sierra Leone - both groups we met with said that this is something that is really needed in this country. We hope to start introducing the mentoring program in Kabala on Friday, which means today and tomorrow we will be doing a lot of work to come up with program initiatives and outlines for the youth to follow and implement on their own. We want to make sure the program is really sustainable, so we will be concentrating on empowering the youth and providing them with basic mentoring and counselling skills so they can take ownership of the program and continue to run it even after we have gone back to Canada. We're really excited to start working with the youth of Kabala again, and to receive their input and feedback about the program. Pastor Maxwell said something today that was a real encouragement to us - he said "Even if you think the work you are doing is small, really, its not. This is a big thing for us." Its an encouragment to know we're making a difference even when it's tiring and doesn't feel like it.
Much Love,
Katie & Krissi