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Sierra Leone
This small country on Africa's western "bulge," north of the equator, which provides a large portion of one of the world's most valuable treasures, diamonds, emerged from a decade of civil war in early 2002, with the help of Britain, the former colonial power, and a large United Nations peacekeeping mission. A lasting feature of the conflict, which left some 50,000 dead, was the atrocities committed by the rebels.
Sierra Leone also faces the challenge of reconstruction. The problems of poverty, tribal rivalry and official corruption that caused the war are far from over. The 70,000 former combatants who were disarmed and rehabilitated after the war have swollen the ranks of the many young people seeking employment.
The Council of Churches in Sierra Leone (CCSL) is working with the help of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and the Presbyterian Hunger Program to facilitate this country's ongoing recovery. The work centers in the areas of human rights/social services and development. The human rights work is focused in three functional areas of the CCSL:
- Mending Hearts, which is responsible for training counselors to assist citizens struggling to recover from trauma suffered during the war, such as rape and torture.
- Child Rights Violations, which addresses the various ways children suffered in wartime and continue to suffer in the aftermath of war.
- Advocacy seeks the promotion of good governance and works for peace, justice, and reconciliation. The work oversees development planning and provides church development officers with technical assistance. This desk also addresses food security and coordinates a youth development program and an agricultural program for ex-combatants.
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