In December 2024, I had the opportunity to take a journey to learn about and celebrate a place-based, grassroots effort to bring new life-changing personal development and vocational opportunities to youth in the Devil Hole neighborhood of Freetown, Sierra Leone. This program – “Bright Start Sierra Leone” – was founded in recent years by Mr. Ishamil Barrie, of Freetown, and Dr. Linda Vakunta, of Madison, Wisconsin and Freetown, to provide technical and vocational training and education to neighborhood youth. Initial programs focused on information systems and tailoring. In January of 2025, the initiative added electrical and solar engineering. New courses for agricultural production, hospitality and nursing have been identified for the next phase of course development. The program concept came out of a community and youth action research incubator put on by Plan International and YLabs, for which Bright Start Sierra Leone was selected from over 50 applicants. The incubator allowed Bright Start Sierra Leone to conduct focus groups and one on one interviews with youth, leaders and community members to understand what type of programming would have the most impact. Area families indicated they wanted educational training that would keep youth engaged outside of school, and prepare them for job opportunities. Mr. Barrie and Dr. Vakunta then personally contributed resources and raised philanthropic funds to develop the program site within the neighborhood, and establish a Sierra Leonean nonprofit organization to host the program. Mr. Barrie, serving as the voluntary executive of the organization, recruited staff and participants. By December 2024, the first cohort of 50 students was ready to graduate from the training program – and it was for this exciting occasion that I was invited to visit.
I am the Executive Director of the UW-Madison Center for Community and Nonprofit Studies (the “CommNS”) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Through my work at the CommNS as well as based on my previous work as an attorney and nonprofit executive director, I have had a range of roles and experiences supporting nonprofit organizations as legal and administrative entities and in their programming and community-facing work. Based on shared professional and academic communities in Madison, Wisconsin, I have known Dr. Vakunta for some time. Dr. Vakunta received her undergraduate and doctoral degrees at UW-Madison and is now Deputy Mayor of the City of Madison. In 2023, Dr. Vakunta and other collaborators in Madison approached me about their vision to create a Wisconsin-based nonprofit organization which could be a partner in supporting various youth development activities in African communities. This vision was based on a long-standing informal tradition of connections and mutual support and exchange across Madison-based community members and efforts abroad. Madison is a community which includes individuals and families from all over the globe, many of whom have made their way to UW-Madison. Some stay in Madison, and have enduring professional and personal connections in Wisconsin, and some return to their home countries and maintain their relationships with colleagues and friends in Madison. Madison is also home to Wisconsinites and Americans who, through their work and scholarship, have strong connections to global communities they have visited or worked with. With this informal, consistent phenomenon in mind, Dr. Vakunta – who is originally from Cameroon and has extensive experience doing community organization work as an executive in Sierra Leone and other locations – wished to bring together colleagues and friends in Wisconsin to establish an American nonprofit which could provide support and collaboration from Wisconsin to African communities and projects. I joined the burgeoning effort as a member of the Board of Directors and began assisting and collaborating with the existing small board to lay out plans and take steps toward forming the entity and obtaining tax-exemption as a U.S. nonprofit.
Through my initial Board meetings with the new American organization, dubbed “Aduru Africa” – meaning “It’s Africa’s Time” – I learned of the initial efforts on the ground that we hoped to support. Mr. Barrie provided consistent updates on Bright Start Sierra Leone, and we learned of the way that he and Dr. Vakunta had leveraged initial grant support to launch programming that reflected the needs of the surrounding neighborhood. Initial key steps included securing and establishing the physical sites and equipment for the training programs. Mr. Barrie’s own construction company contributed in-kind efforts to build facilities and Mr. Barrie and Dr. Vakunta both contributed personally when additional needs arose. Throughout board meetings we heard about the challenges faced by families in the Devil Hole community, including scarcity of resources and employment, and the emergence of a concerning drug problem with “kush”, creating concern among parents and teachers, and creating an urgent need to educate youth about the risks and keep them engaged in healthy activities.
Our Wisconsin-based nonprofit board worked through the slow process to formalize the Aduru Africa organization; meanwhile through Mr. Barrie’s updates on Bright Start Sierra Leone, we gained an understanding that the programming on the ground in Devil Hole was having a real impact. Mr. Barrie reported on the work to get the essential components of the programming in place and, once up and running, the strong student engagement through the first courses. In Fall of 2024, Mr. Barrie graciously extended the invitation to our U.S.-based board of our American entity to attend the graduation ceremony of the first cohort of students in the Bright Start Sierra Leone programs. Dr. Vakunta followed up with an offer to help host anyone who would make the journey. I decided that for my own understanding of the program as Board Member of the organization working to support it, and my own broader interest in youth programming in the global south for my broader role in the sector, this was a valuable and special opportunity I could not pass up.
I arrived in Freetown the day before the graduation and was greeted by Mr. Barrie’s cousin, Abubakarr. I took the iconic ferry ride from the airport across Cline Bay to be collected at the Ferry Port by Mr. Barrie. We journeyed by car across the bustling city of Freetown to the neighborhood of Devil Hole, on the southeast edge of the municipal area.
Before arriving at the site of the Bright Start educational center, we stopped on the main commerce road of Devil Hole to see the storefront shop that Bright Start Africa had secured as a work and retail space for its student tailoring services and products. The storefront effort was new and just getting underway, and would be a topic for strategic discussion later in the visit.
We made our way to the site of the main educational center, passing a new construction project that Mr. Barrie’s firm was working on nearby, which may be used for future expansion of the program. We then pulled into the main site, where we were able to visit the tailoring classroom and talk to some of the students, as well as tour the other facilities. Some signs of the graduation ceremony to occur the next day were already present – folding chairs being loaded in and signage for the big event. We enjoyed some of the outstanding homemade cuisine of Mrs. Barrie, and settled in as youth from the program started to arrive to set up the graduation decorations, chairs, and tents into the night, with the sound of their excellent Afrobeats playlists as the audio backdrop.
The next day, the site bustled with activity, as members of the Bright Start team and youth participants did final set-up and dignitaries from municipal government, the local school, and the NGO community began to arrive. Soon, the sounds of a marching band could be heard piercing through the subtle background sounds of Devil Hole, and student graduates arrived through the gates of the educational site in a procession led by musicians playing a triumphant tune with heavy drum beats. Soon families and supporters of the students began to arrive, until the entire courtyard of the site was full. Master of Ceremonies Eric Koroma, staff of the Bright Start Sierra Leone program and an active community leader and law student, kicked off the program, which included Muslim and Christian blessings, testimonials of student participants, and remarks from dignitaries, offering their congratulations to the students who had completed the program, and their families. Many speakers commended the program for basing its plan on community engagement and information-gathering to ensure that efforts met the expressed needs and hopes of families in the area. Awards were given to top students, and diplomas distributed to all, including money-pinning through which attendees and supporters could express their congratulations for students in the form of donations. Students surprised Mr. Barrie with a plaque in gratitude for his leadership. The dedication of Mr. Barrie and his family and team, and their personal contributions of time and treasure, were obvious, and community families expressed their deep appreciation accordingly.
There was a satisfied, joyful, and peaceful feeling in the air when it was time for families to return home. The DJ hired for the event continued to play tracks as the remaining team members and board members tidied up and conducted local TV news interviews.
In the subsequent days, our “Aduru Africa” family had the chance to traverse Freetown for work and play. We were hosted for a visit to the University of Sierra Leone by UW-Madison alum and President of Sierra Leone University Dr. Aiah Lebbie, and to the nonprofit Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary. Our guide on our hike through the preserve told us of the way he had found the opportunity to work at the preserve after losing his parents to Ebola, and about the adjustment of being in the city bustle to being in the middle of nature. I gathered together with several nongovernmental organization (NGO) and community-based organization (CBO) leaders from the region – Bright Start Sierra Leone, Lady Ellen’s Women’s Aid Foundation, and Concerned Mothers Movement for Women’s Participation in Development (CMMWPD) of Sierra Leone, to discuss their work, understand the challenges and opportunities of the regional sector, and exchange perspectives on this type of work across context. We also conducted strategy sessions over more delicious Sierra Leonean cuisine. We gathered information from Mr. Barrie about next steps and needs for Bright Start Sierra Leone, which could be shared with the U.S.-based Aduru Africa Board to help with its 2025 strategic goals.
I could not leave Freetown without a visit to Big Makit and a sublime swim at River Number 2 Beach. Soon I was saying “see you soon” to my Aduru Africa Freetown family, at the ferry depot, and headed back on that iconic ferry ride to the airport, with personal service once again from Abubakarr, who, for my final pick-up, donned the Wisconsin shirt I had given him on my first day.
The dedication and virtue exhibited by the many new friends and colleagues I encountered in Freetown, who are working to create opportunity and a brighter future for their community, humbled and inspired me in a way that will impact my work and personal perspective for years to come – a priceless gift. I hope that I can say “TENKI!” and give something back in my future work with Aduru Africa and by building awareness about their good work.
1To see more timely updates about Bright Start Sierra Leone, check out: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bright-start-sierra-leone/posts/?feedView=all and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083421396833
2For background on Freetown and Sierra Leone, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown#:~:text=The%20city%20of%20Freetown%20was,Caribbean%20and%20Liberated%20African%20slaves and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sierra_Leone