RESPECT Partners With The LemonAid Fund
About a year ago Alex P. Columbus, the National Coordinator for Peace Pals Education Network/RESPECT Sierra Leone, met with the LemonAid Fund's founder to talk about a possible partnership between the two organizations. In March of this year, RESPECT officially partnered up with the LemonAid Fund to bring technology to Sierra Leoneons who would otherwise go without.
The LemonAid Fund, founded by Nancy Peddle, is an organization that sees the child as the center of the circle of change. From this, the LemonAid Fund directs much of its efforts to early childhood activities including education, health care, and parenting.
It supports organizations and individuals who are making a change in their own communities, such as social entrepreneur Frances Brown, who came up with the idea to build The Village Leadership Centre in Sierra Leone.
The Village, as it is called, will serve as a school for children ranging from two years to senior secondary school-aged students. It's going to be the hub for many activities which includes ensuring vaccinations and good health care are provided, networking a number of other schools together for peace and education opportunities, and training for teachers and parents.
It will also house a resource centre with books, computers, and other technology for children's learning. That's where RESPECT comes in.
RESPECT and its Sierra Leone associates Peace Pals Education Network are sending LemonAid Fund 20 PII computers for The Village's resource centre.
PPEN and LemonAid are also discussing how to get a vehicle for The Village's mobile centre. The vehicle will travel to schools in Peace Pals and LemonAid Fund operational areas to provide children access to computers and training on how to use them.
Peddle says the LemonAid Fund is pleased to add RESPECT to its growing list of partners, along with RESPECT's Sierra Leone associates PPEN. She says that through partnerships, we can all do more than anyone of us could alone.
The children of Sierra Leone, who have seen so much war and violence, need as many resources as we can amass to create the change that's needed to lead this country forward, she adds.