Sierra Leone

If you like Leonardo DiCaprio, you’ve probably seen the movie “Blood Diamonds.” A story based loosely on a real, devastating civil war instigated by greed, corruption and access to beautiful diamonds in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is a country (slightly smaller than South Carolina), on the coast of West Africa bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Liberia and Guinea with an estimated population of 5.3million people of Christian, Muslim and indigenous religious affiliation. The population comprises of sixteen ethnic groups, each with their own language and customs, distributed across three provinces; northern, southern, eastern and the more urban western area, wherein lies the capital city known as Freetown. The official language is English with a main dialect of Krio (a form of Pidgin English) spoken/understood by 95 percent of the population.    

Though a relatively small country at 71,740 square kilometers; Sierra Leone is home to one of the world’s largest known natural rutile deposits, as well as, diamonds, titanium ore, bauxite, iron ore, gold, timber and chromite. Despite this country’s wealth of resources, Sierra Leone is an extremely poor nation with a significant disparity in income distribution. In the 1820s, Sierra Leoneans were known for their educational achievements among other things. Today, the total population literacy rate is 35.1 percent, with 46.9 percent of that number representative of males and 24.4 percent females. According to the CIA world fact book, “Its physical and social infrastructure has yet to recover from the eleven year (1991-2002) civil war and serious social disorders continue to hamper economic development. Alluvial diamond mining remains the major source of hard currency earnings accounting for nearly half of Sierra Leone's exports.”  Our goal at A.W.A.K.E. International is to assist the local community in becoming more active contributors to the country’s social and economic development.  

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of African Affairs,(2010). Republic of Sierra Leone Washington, DC: Retrieved from http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5475.htm

CIA,(2011). Africa:: sierra leone (ISSN 1553-8133). Washington, DC: Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sl.html

World Statistics Pocketbook. (2011). United nations statistics department. Retrieved February 18, 2011, from http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=SIERRA%20LEONE