Today was an extremely busy day. We set out early for Freetown, waking up at 6:30. The first stop was to Barefoot Women, which is an amazing organization that trains women to work in technical fields, so they can enter the workforce and make money. The main skill they teach women is how to create and manage solar power systems for their communities. They also teach vocational things to women like how to make breads and pastries from cassava (we got to try muffins and they were delicious!). The women come to learn and train at their facility for up to 9 months and then return back to their communities to sustain them through the skills they learned. Women recruited to this program are aged 25-30, and are single parents or school drop outs.

Pictured: the Barefoot Women staff

After Barefoot Women, we drove to First Step, which is a juice factory. They showed us how they produce juice concentrate and all the various machines used to get the final product. The company was stated by an Italian engineer that wanted to improve the developing world by giving people jobs and technical skills.

Pictured: the machines that process the juice. All the equipment is shipped from Italy.

After, we drove to Home Leone which resettles families out of the slums and into community based housing. The houses were extremely well built and sturdy. The venture owns 65 acres of land and plans to use it to build schools and jobs for people living in the communities.

Pictured: A housing compound that houses about 6 different families.

We later visited greenhouses constructed by the HESE program at Penn State. Most of them were growing tomatoes and Okra. Okra is strong in vitamin A, and is grow to improve the health of children in the village who have vitamin deficiencies.

After lunch, we drove to World Hope International Freetown headquarters. We were given a tour of the facility which was beautiful. A majority of our time was spent in a conference room where we presented our venture to four World Hope employees and the CEO of World Hope. It went well and they gave us feedback on how we could potentially propose our venture to the Sierra Leonean government because they cover the costs of pregnant women’s healthcare. We headed back to Makeni after our presentation.

Pictured: World Hope International Freetown headquarters

Pictured: The view from the World Hope’s balcony