Rotifunk. Quite possibly the coolest name for a town I've ever heard. Had visions of a community of James Brown fans, but as it turns out they're more into Afropop, which frankly is still very funky.
Today, Cathrin (Sierra Leone Country Director), Thomas (incoming Senior Manager who's visiting from his current job with AusAID in Papua New Guinea), Daniel (Youth Empowerment Programme Coordinator) and I left Freetown in the morning and headed east along possibly the bumpiest road I've ever been on, but the road was nothing compared to the bridge that we had to cross to get there. We all decided to walk it, leaving poor David (the driver) to brave taking the car across on his own.
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| The bridge to access Rotifunk |
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| One of the better tracks |
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| On the bridge to Rotifunk |
We started the visit with a performance from the Youth Action Group who our Volunteer Peer Educators are supporting through their work with the community. I have never heard such strong, confident singing from a group of young people and found myself reminiscing about pathetic school assembly singing at home when I was at school. Pales in comparison.
We then had a meeting with the Rotifunk Community Board, made up of key people like the school principal, church minister, district council reps, district and chiefdom youth council rep and community health officers. All spoke highly of the great work our Volunteer Peer Educators are doing, raising awareness about issues such as teenage pregnancy, STDs, drug and alcohol abuse and delivering training such as civic education and sexual and reproductive health education. We then went to see them in action at the community's Youth-Friendly Resource Centre. They were so passionate about the work they're doing and I was thoroughly impressed with their dedication and adaptability to work in a community completely different from their own (we place volunteers nationwide) that speaks a different language, eats different food and has different customs. It's the first time I've had a chance to see our volunteer programme in action since I joined Restless Development back in June last year, and it really brought everything to life which is massively motivating, and makes my internet/power/water frustrations seem really insignificant in contrast.
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| Youth Action Group in full voice |
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| School principal opening the Community Board meeting |
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| With Thomas (our new Senior Programme Manager) and the Volunteer Peer Educators |
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