Overview...

What started as an awareness raising and ethnographic styled walk through Sierra Leone, this site now details the encounters of a not so academic academic who spends more time occupying Wall Street and squats than a university...

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Human Priorities

As many of you may know by now, I have committed myself to Occupy Wall St. and am staying randomly in NYC and working heavily within the movement and the Think Tank working group.  I am looking for work down here and applying to Phd programs so that I can become sustainable and move forward with things both personally and within the movement.  Over the last year given un/underemployment I have not been able to save much money to continue this work in Sierra Leone I had been working on.  Anything that I did have is now going directly to surviving down here in the city given the utter chaos of what I am living in.

and we are complaining about our education system...

I had been trying to get to Sierra Leone in the spring to set up a project, but that has now probably changed for the time being.  I write you this because I got an email from my partner Yapo in Sierra Leone today who may have a very solid lead on a development grant.  We only need to establish a few things with the company itself to be eligible for this grant:  bank account, registration with a few agencies, etc.  A total of $390 is needed to allow for the opportunity of $5-10,000 (you can read the email below).


Basically, we need to get contributions  at any level that could help us toward reaching this number.  I have thrown myself into Occupy 110%.  I have made choices that have put me in a position of hardship and forced sacrifices upon myself that I must live with.  In many ways these decisions have ostracized my friends and the people who have helped me get to where I am in life - I am very sorry that this has happened and accept responsibility and the consequences for that.  But when I woke up this morning to this email, I realized that the people I met in Sierra Leone, struggling daily on every level of existence, would not, and did not, deserve to be asked to understand what I am doing here, what it could eventually mean for them, or the passion that I have for it, and didn't deserve to be asked to wait any longer for things to get better for them.  Thus, I am asking if anyone is interested in helping them.  I can be contacted through the contact page on this website, or donations can be submitted on the upper right of this page.  Please read the below email.  Thank you, and I truly wish you all the absolute best.

...and jobs...

Hi Tim,
I just want to inform you that I got a consultative meeting with the Rural and Private Sector Boss here in Makeni last Saturday with regards aibia. They are presently working on a project to develop the capacity of local organizations here in Makeni.
Their priority is to provide grants up to $5,000 - 10,000 to Local CBO's (Community Based Organizations) depending on the objectives of the project.
I have the opportunity to win this but faced with few problems as to the criteria to qualify for this.
These include the following;
- Registration with SLANGO (Sierra Leone Association of Non Governmental Organizations)
- Opening of a Bank Account
- Presentation of an Electronic and Original/Scan Copies of Certificates of Registration and Constitution and
- Registration with the Development Ministry.
I have tried my best to do a lot but can’t do all without your contribution....
After enquiries we are left to the expenditure of One Million Seven hundred and fifty thousand Leones (Le1, 750,000) which is approximately three hundred and ninety dollars ($390).The cost of Opening the account included.
You need to help with some Finance.
Note: The deadline for submission of all relevant documents is 23rd December, 2011.
Yapo