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By our records, Yelibuya is probably the most-written-about town of the year. It really started more than a decade ago when a  picture of the island was posted on Panoramio, a photo-sharing website that was once used by Google to augment its Google Maps and Google Earth services. Apart from old British Admiralty nautical charts used by mariners, nothing much can be found on Yelibuya.  However, an article in Al Jazeera would change all that in August 2018 when it asked: " Why is this town in Sierra Leone sinking ?" Mara Kardas-Nelson, a journalist based in California, found that while there's no official government data in Sierra Leone on just how much the water is rising, the community estimates that the ocean has encroached inland at least 300 meters over the last 30 years. "As you can see, there is no method for protection. And it gets worse every year," one Yelibuya resident told Kardas-Nelson.  The same week, Face2Face Africa picked up the story u...

Over the past 12 months, 272 million people, representing 3.5% of the world's population, have been driven to seek a better future elsewhere. According to the UNESCO Director-General,  some are seeking new economic and employment opportunities, while others, such as refugees and asylum seekers, have been overwhelmed by their situation, and are fleeing war, persecution, hunger or disease.  Click here to read the full message .

FREETOWN--25th June 2019: Students on campus were caught up in violence today, as the Students' Union Presidential Debate took place at Fourah Bay College. The debate was organised by the Sierra Leone Debating Council (SLDC) Fourah Bay College chapter. The goal was for all candidates to talk about issues affecting the college and what they would do if elected president. The three candidates are: Eunice Naffie Mustapha, whose supporters are mainly from the “black camp,” Mohamed Wurie Bah from the “white camp,” and Mohammed Kabba, whose supporters are called neutralists. According to eyewitnesses, it was supporters from both the “white and the black camps” that started the fight. Supporters from the two camps, just at the very end of the debate, went wild as they pelted each other with stones, smashed windowpanes of a newly renovated building, and vandalised cars, forcing innocent students to run for their lives. Police later got to the scene and fired teargas to halt...

Sierra Leone's National Telecommunications Commission (NATCOM) has issued a statement on the so-called "Wangiri Scam" calls. The press release, signed by Abdul Ben-Foday, director of corporate and industry affairs at the National Telecommunications Commission in Freetown, reads in full: The attention of the National Telecommunications Communications (NATCOM) has been drawn to a series of criminal activities carried   out by scammers using the 232-21 Code to perpetrate their criminal activities. The Commission is informed that certain persons in the USA have been receiving scam calls purportedly coming from Sierra Leone, and the said criminal syndicate known as 'WANGIRI or One Ring' has been reported through various news channels and tabloids. This has the propensity of affecting the country's image internationally. Being deeply concerned by this development, the Commission wishes   to assure the government and the people of the USA and other r...

Over the past decade, Sierra Leone has made progress in getting more children into school by constructing and rehabilitating schools, procuring reading/teaching and learning materials as well as disbursing performance-based grants. A new grant of US$17.2 million aims to increase equitable access to education and improve learning outcomes for approximately 1 million girls and boys in public pre-primary and primary schools, with a focus on the most vulnerable children. “Sierra Leone has been a GPE partner since 2007 and engaged in the important process of building an education system that supports all of the country’s children,” said Alice Albright, Chief Executive Officer, Global Partnership for Education. “This latest funding will be key to making further progress for the youngest learners in reading and writing and increase access to early childhood education, which is the foundation for lifelong learning, for thousands of children,”  Albright said. The grant will help imp...

It's not the first time photos have circulated on social media of what has been described as '24-hour, seven-days-a-week operations to carry hundreds of tonnes of sand from Freetown's beaches and sell it to builders as construction material.' The Earth Day 2019 photos from intrepid Sierra Leonean photojournalist Issam capture how free-for-all sand mining is destroying Freetown’s eco-tourism opportunities. For years, local and international reports have shown round-the-clock sand-mining on beaches within a few miles of Sierra Leone’s capital is having a devastating effect on the coastline, and destroying property. Without permits, hundreds of trucks attack the beaches on a daily basis, hiring local boys as daily laborers to destroy their own communities. Reports say that not much is being done to control the increasing demand for sand to make concrete blocks.

Vickie Remoe is a television producer, host of the "Vickie Remoe Show" on AYV TV Channel 33, and a strategic communications and marketing consultant. She has just started a free masterclass for interested learners to develop digital skills. Her online news platform (SwitSalone.com) pays young people to submit local content stories.

Joan Adama Kainessie is a local designer and entrepreneur.  "As a girl, whenever my Dad would buy me (fabric), I'd take a pencil and draw what I wanted (the tailor) to sew. Later, when my step mum set up a shop, I was excited about having my clothes made right in front of me. So, I sat and watched her.  "When my mum closed the shop, I would (make clothes) and sell them to my friends at college. Eventually, my drawing book became my treasure. People were hiring me to do their designs and before I knew it, I started realizing a huge amount of money. Now, I encourage young people to grow so that they could hit the road to empowerment as I did years back."  Joan is teaching everything she has learned to six apprentices, who take home up to 300,000 Leones a month. They work on all kinds of designs in the workshop as they train to be dressmakers and tailors. Customers pay anything from 15,000 Leones for fabric and accessories to over 80,000 Leo...

Williette James is head of the Mass Communications department at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. Recently, she introduced the Women's Leadership Initiative. The group fights to nurture women and university students like me, Inyilla Conteh of Young Life in Freetown , in diverse ways. "The initiative is to help strengthen the minds of young women, who feel their views and opinions are never important in the gatherings they attend," she said. "We are going to ensure that we expose them to media and other opportunities by enabling them to master the art of public speaking. Most women are shy to speak in public; even the educated ones, and we aim to bridge that gap because bold women always stand a chance of blunting the sharp ends to possibilities,” she said.  Seven years ago, James was the coordinator of the U.N.-backed Gender Media Club in Sierra Leone, She told VOA that "it’s imperative that the press give more coverage to women's...

Sierra Leone’s government has signed a  deal for new buses, a news report said recently. According to the papers, the Xiamen Golden Dragon Bus Company in China is expected to supply 200 buses. The agreement was sealed at the China-Africa Summit, where President Maada Bio led a 15-man delegation. For now, just three minibusses serve hundreds of students at Fourah Bay College, which sits at the top of Mount Aureol in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. When it's home time, students who live off campus spend hours in long queues.  Typically, only the strongest make it into the jampacked trucks and minibusses. Minus the minibusses, a few taxis ply the route from downtown to the hilly campus. But even getting into those is a struggle. Past 5:00 pm, the taxis hardly come by. "The other day, I nearly broke my wrist trying to gain into a taxi, “ complained Haja Kadiatu Kamara, one of the students waiting in line. “It was so scary the way fellow students pushed to...