Students with masks at the Women in Action reopening
Dear Echoers,
Over the last few months, as in many parts of the world, Sierra Leone was put on lockdown due to COVID-19. The Sierra Leone medical infrastructure had a total of 9 ventilators available. So restricting public gathering and business was really important. While we provide funding to Esther's school, the Women in Action Development Project, the school itself raises funds by taking on catering and tailoring contracts which was not possible over the lockdown. As a result, with the school reopening for the Fall school season, it is facing a shortage of rent which we are trying to bridge. Rent is due this month which covers us for the next year.
We've gone through a similar situation before during the Ebola Outbreak in 2014. And this community got us through. So we're calling on your support again. The school needs a total of 6,000 USD. We've currently raised about 3,500 CDN between online donations through our website and our currently active Facebook Fundraiser which closes on Monday Sept 14th.
As a reminder of what you're helping to support, here is an overview from Esther herself. We asked Esther to record a short video about her work that was shown during the presentation I gave for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada earlier this Summer. Here is the clip she shared with us. YOU ALL help make this possible!