At a secondary school on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, the speaker finished an address to the assembled pupils with a little mantra that was all too familiar to me. I grew up with it.
My parents, especially my mother, would often impress upon me and my nine siblings the exact same thing: that our focus should be on “Education, education, education”.
The unspoken subtext being, of course, that education was the only escape route from the lowly position that we (and they) had been born into.
This time, the advice was being delivered in an entirely different context.
Difficult as the Northern Ireland of the mid-20th century was for the poor, it bore no resemblance to modern-day Sierra Leone.
The country is ranked as the third poorest in the world, with two-thirds of the population (64.8%) classed as multi-dimensionally poor.
An estimated 490,000 people (10% of its population) are disabled, and it has one of the world’s highest rates of Albinism.
Sadly, the social exclusion and marginalisation of people with disabilities is pronounced – as, to a certain extent, is that of women and girls.
However, the person addressing the pupils at the Freetown school is a shining example of what can be achieved by education.
And, even more impressively, living proof of what can be achieved by an educated Sierra Leonian woman.
Tiangay Gondoe, the Sierra Leone country director (CD) for Sightsavers, is a force of nature. I asked her how, after 16 years with Sightsavers, she could possibly maintain such drive and commitment.
“It is very simple, really. I hate to see people suffer. To be deprived of the medical help that they need, and to be isolated or ignored, simply because of their age, their disability, or because they cannot afford to pay. That is a terrible situation.
“I want to make things better for as many people as possible. These are my people. They are our people. Thank God I have a wonderful, dedicated team to work with. We work together as a family.”
After many years of working in international aid across numerous countries, I can honestly say that Tiangay and her team are amongst the most impressive I have ever encountered.
They are screening people for treatable eye problems across the country, with special emphasis on the poor and the disabled. Every person who is found to require eye treatment, up to and including an operation, need have no worries about cost (providing they are disabled, or are too poor to pay).
Nor is Tiangay alone in being a successful female role model with connections to Sightsavers.
In Freetown, we witnessed a cataract operation being performed on a middle-aged woman, an amputee, by ophthalmic surgeon Dr Alice Taylor.
Dr Taylor is a Sierra Leonean who underwent her training in Kenya, thanks to support from an Irish Aid-funded Sightsavers programme.
Furthermore, the country’s deputy minister of health, Dr Jalikatu Mustapha, also trained as an ophthalmologist with Sightsavers.
The school in Freetown where Tiangay addressed the pupils is one of many where with partners – including the Sierra Leonian government – Sightsavers is promoting social inclusion and inclusive education.
Children are being taught not just the value of conventional education itself, but their rights within, and responsibilities to, wider society. Most particularly, their responsibilities to the most vulnerable members of society.
I chatted with some of the pupils to try to gauge what they had learned.
A 12-year-old boy told me: “We should respect disabled people and treat them as equals. Make friends with them, and help them when they need it.
“We do not bully people or ignore them just because they are different. They have feelings too. And have the same rights as everyone else. And it is the same with girls. We must respect them and treat them properly. They are just as equal as boys.”
I was delighted to be gently lectured on the dangers of early marriage for young girls by another pupil.
She told me: “If a girl marries too young, she will miss her education. And end up struggling with lots of children and no money. And an early marriage is also dangerous. They can easily die from trying to give birth to a child at a young age.”
She went on to tell me of two sisters, neighbours of hers, one of whom married very early while the other continued with her education.
“The first girl now has many children and lives in poverty, but her sister went on to university and is now a nurse at our local hospital. That’s what I want to do.”
I never got a sense of rote learning from any of the many children I spoke to. They were too obviously sincere (and each used their own phraseology) for that to be the case. Besides, the evidence was there for me to see.
As I chatted with the young girl, just behind her a boy was chattering and laughing with his best friend – who has untreatable eye problems – as he helped him to his seat, quite oblivious to the fact that I was watching.
Sightsavers is employing a top-down as well as a bottom-up approach to bettering the lot of the disabled and that of women and girls in Sierra Leone, by engaging with current generations as well as the next.
They are meeting with local influencers – such as paramount chiefs, village and town elders, politicians, teachers, and so on - across the country. And, slowly but surely, attitudes are beginning to change.
I couldn’t help but think that, at least where women and girls are concerned, we are in dire need of something similar in this part of the world.
The official statistics in NI regarding the violence and abuse suffered by women and girls – up to and including murder – are horrendous.
And when one considers that the figures only represent incidents that were reported and where perpetrators were successfully prosecuted, it is frightening to imagine what the true situation for women and girls here must be.
How many of our female citizens are suffering in silence, through a multitude of fears. Fear of a perpetrator; of not being believed; of a decision that there is not enough evidence to prosecute; of being harangued in court by a defence lawyer; the reactions of family, friends, children, and so on.
Amongst my companions in Sierra Leone was Padraic Mannion, a teacher at Cuans College in Galway, and a well-known and very successful Galway hurler.
It was Padraic’s second visit to Sierra Leone, and mine too. I travelled there on this occasion at the invitation of Sightsavers Ireland with Ciara Smullen, Emma Murphy and Padraic. (Respectively: Sightsavers Ireland’s CEO; its head of communications and public affairs; and a Sightsavers ambassador.)
A genuinely lovely, self-effacing man, with a delicious sense of humour and enormous empathy for others, Padraic and I hit it off from virtually the moment we met.
His greatest joy was distributing junior hurls and sliotars amongst the pupils at every school we visited. After which he would embark upon a basic coaching session in the art of hurling – much to the delight of himself and the children.
So enthusiastic was he, I sometimes worried about the length of time he was spending galloping around in the 30–32C heat.
At one school, St Joseph’s for the Hearing Impaired in Makeni, he came over to where I was sheltering in what little shade I could find to help himself to a swig or two of water. Whereupon I jokingly advised him: “Careful Padraic, or you’ll be having a heart attack running about in this heat.”
“Sure Davy, wouldn’t it be worth it. When you look at the pleasure these children are having,” he replied with a smile. And with that he was off again.
His reply was something of a measure of the man. He is a gentleman and a gentle man, with a heart as big as the county he proudly represents on the sporting field. (Incidentally, thanks to him, I am now a – albeit distant – fan of the Galway county hurling team.) Padraic is fiercely proud of his association with Sightsavers.
Our visit to St Joseph’s was particularly memorable for another reason.
Upon our arrival, the pupils and staff greeted us with a lovely communal song. It was deeply moving to see and hear so many children signing and singing as a welcome to their visitors. All of them with hearing problems, many profoundly deaf.
There are occasional moments in your life when you’re so touched that you can’t say anything. There’s nothing to be said. Because mere words can’t describe how you’re feeling.
For me and my companions, St Joseph’s was one of those moments. (Incidentally, the school was founded by a nun from Donegal, Sister Mary Sweeney, who retired only a few years ago. It has 198 pupils, 90 of them boarders, who come from every part of Sierra Leone.)
On something of a personal note, I worked for an extended period in Sierra Leone during the terrible Ebola crisis there, and consider its people (along with those of Syria) to be by far the warmest and most welcoming I have ever had the pleasure and privilege to live amongst and work with. I was delighted to return. Indeed, it felt somewhat like returning home.
With help, the people of Sierra Leone were able to overcome and banish Ebola. But they still have a multitude of problems to contend with, and need all the help they can get across many different spheres.
It warmed my heart to witness some of what Sightsavers is doing to provide as much of that help as it possibly can.
:: If you would like to donate to Sightsavers Ireland to assist it in its work details can be found at donate.sightsavers.ie.
There are occasional moments in your life when you’re so touched that you can’t say anything. There’s nothing to be said. Because mere words can’t describe how you’re feeling