Today’s featured woman is Rose Moriba Simbo. [I originally wrote this piece be published at the end of March; unfortunately, the best laid plans sometimes go awry!]

To close out International Women’s Month, I thought I would feature the most International woman I know, Rose Moriba Simbo. I first met Rose through Gill Curry (see Day 3), both of whom live near London, England, when they were raising money and gathering bras and under garments for women in Sierra Leone with the Kori Women’s Development Project. Gill first met Rose when she gave a talk to the Gill’s Soroptimist Group many years ago. Rose’s story took a bit of effort to put together and I want to thank both Rose and Gill for all of the background information on Rose and the Kori Women’s Development Project.

You know a force to be reckoned with when you meet one and Rose certainly is. Here is part of her story and why I think She is ALL That!

Kori Women’s Development Project

Rose is the guiding force behind the Kori Women’s Development Project, which is set in Rose’s hometown, Sierra Leone. As they raise money and gather donations, they are building a school and a library and bathrooms (latrines), a pig sty and corral, and many other things. The Project has a board of seven trustees in the United Kingdom, with a mix of four British and three Sierra Leonean women. Two of these women move between the UK and Sierra Leone to make sure the money raised goes directly to the project and that the work actually gets done, no matter how long it takes. Dauda is Rose’s elder brother, who has retired from working for the UN all over Africa. He is the rock at the Taiama end of this charity.

In the last six years, the Kori Women’s Development Project has built and equipped a forty-seat library, which is named after the late husband of one of their trustees. Although it took quite a while to complete the construction of the library, it is in continuous use now. The library has solar panels on the roof, and it will need more solar power when the computers donated and sent by the local authorities in Maidenhead come online.

The Kori Women’s Development Project has also rebuilt a small rural school and furnished it with good, second-hand school furniture from a large primary school in Kent. After the rebuild, the school is now water tight and it is cooler inside the small classrooms. After hearing about the scope of the work Rose’s group has been doing, I think the most important change after the rebuild is that they now have a clean and reliable water supply (by their standards). Previously, the area behind the school was covered in crap (literally) and the students were too scared to go into the long grass because of the risk posed by snakes in the grass. I don’t blame them, I would definitely avoid that area too!

The Kori Women’s Development Project also built six latrines and a water well for the school, which has more than 150 pupils. My favorite part is that this school is now named after my friend Gill Curry (see Day 3), as she used a bit of the inheritance from her parents to pay for the toilet installation along with the re-cementing of the mud bricks. When I spoke to Gill about this rebuild, she was quick to point out that these toilets are latrines or “long drop toilets” that actually don’t smell.

The Project has a group of leaders, mostly women, in Taiama and they work closely with Dauda and a “building gang” to accomplish most of the work they are now doing.

Somebody recently asked Rose how this charity was planned, she said it wasn’t planned and it seems to have a life of its own. According to Rose and Gill, God is a definite member of its community, as when they frequently hit a brick wall, something always turns up and they find a way round the problem.

Rose Escapes to England

Rose was born in Taiama, Kori Chiefdom, Myamba District, Sierra Leone, which is about 100 miles inland from the capital, Freetown. Rose’s mother, Musa, was a fish monger in the local market, and she was no slouch. The woman who ran the next stall over became her close friend. She had one son of her own and after Musa died, she helped look after Musa’s four youngest children, including Rose, who were all girls.

Rose remembers seeing American Peace Corps workers and US Methodist Missionaries when she was young. She always made sure to go to Sunday School because they provided toys to play with and they fed them bread and butter and orange squash.

Rose did well in school and passed with the highest score on an exam to earn an exclusive scholarship to a better secondary school. Because her father had so many children he couldn’t afford the special uniform. Although her adoptive mom was very poor, she believed in the power of education and made sure that Rose received an education; a theme Rose upholds in Sierra Leone to this day through her work with the Kori Women’s Development Project.

As was the custom, at fifteen, Rose was forcibly cut with female genital mutilation (FGM). She was so angry about what had happened to her and this barbaric practice that she has worked tirelessly to empower women in the Kori region to become educated and to foster their independence. In Gill’s words, “If you have not been cut you are not going to allow your daughters to have it done, so it is a start.”  Through Rose and Gill’s efforts with the Kori development project, they have managed to virtually stop all FGM in Rose’s home region in Sierra Leone.

Rose had the opportunity to come to England in her early twenties to study law. But, she found that she could not afford the courses. So, she was encouraged by a family member who was living in West London at the time, to go into nursing. Until that time, her only nursing experience had been as a young girl when she was a translator for a British midwife working in a clinic in Taiama.

Sierra Leone

A little bit of background on Rose’s homeland. Sierra Leone is a very small African country on the West Coast of Africa, with a population of seven million. The Atlantic waters by the golden beaches of the capital of Freetown are very warm. However, this coastline is where most of the slaves who were shipped to the West Indies and America were from. So, there is probably quite a bit of Sierra Leonian blood in America today.

The local language in the Kori region is Mende, which has a soft lilt. The Kori word bongai means fish, which Rose uses in her email address to this day. The other language they use is Krio, which is a patois language. Even with all these regional languages, English is the official language for education and other “official” things in Sierra Leone, as for years it was a British Colony. In Gill’s opinion, the colonial relationship was better there than it was in some of the other British dominions.

During the recent civil war, the rebels massacred lots of the teachers, civic leaders, and anyone official. Women and children were particularly targeted. Rebels burnt the extensive libraries at the university and completely destroyed the infrastructure. The British army, other UN troops, and Ecomog went in to finish them off and restore basic services in the city. The British army was called on again to set up a system for treating the overwhelming Ebola outbreak. The post-colonial links in this region are still strong and positive.

Today in Sierra Leone

Nowadays the Chinese are taking over the whole of Africa. They have built roads and infrastructure; but, at the same time, the off flow from their mining activities has polluted the rivers. These rivers now have few fish, but the crocodiles have survived. It is mostly a fertile country and is fast becoming the bread basket of China.

The community has Methodists, Catholics, Muslims, and others, who all work together for the good of the community.  At the height of the starvation, post the Ebola outbreak a few years ago, Gill and Rose managed to obtain and ship a ton of rice and by the time the rice reached Taiama, the community team, including chiefs, village chiefs, head teachers, and religious leaders, had it all planned where the rice should go. Thankfully, the rice went to those most in need or unable to fend for themselves. The people were not allowed to go into their fields and harvest their ripe crops because this was done in groupss and could have spread the Ebola infection. And all of this was accomplished without bribery or corruption!

Midwifery in England

Somewhere along the way, Rose earned her nursing degree and a masters degree, all as a single mother. She has had a varied career in many hospitals, and is now a specialist in restorative FGM procedures and HIV blood conditions. She is a qualified lecturer at South Bank University and also lectures at two other universities in the London area. She also oversees the training of midwives.The mothers Rose serves as a midwife call her Auntie Rose; they relax and then out pops the baby! What a compliment to a midwife.

Their October 2017 Trip to Sierra Leone

The culmination of Rose’s work with the Kori Women’s Development Project was seen first-hand in a trip last October to Sierra Leone. Six ladies went there to see the school and the nearly completed piggeries. The piggery set up now has six breeding sows, two boars, and thirty piglets. The hope is that the eventual income from their farm will cover the microscopic wages paid to the librarians and the future long term costs for the library.

There were many funny moments during this trip and Gill filled me in on all the details. She said that you need to be very adaptable to survive the erratic or non-existent third world water and electricity supplies; she added that it was lovely, but exhausting for a bunch of mature ladies. The vehicles they toured in were ‘interesting,’ but got them where they wanted to go. The ladies all came back puzzled why people in the first world complain about every slightest thing that annoys them, when they really have it made!

If you get ill with anything serious in Sierra Leone, you can only get treatment if you are rich and can go abroad, otherwise you put up with it and die soon. But that is life and the locals were so grateful for what the Kori Development Project is doing for them. The Project does not give them money directly, but they put money into things that improve hygiene and make the Kori citizens able to improve their lot themselves.

Because the locals didn’t want the ladies to have any problems when they visited, three educated army guys were assigned to them on their visit. It wasn’t that the locals were worried about an attack or anything, but six “mature” British ladies stood out like a sore thumb, and in any other poor community they might have been a target for theft. The army guys were fantastic; they carried all the bags, went shopping with them, and carried everything home for them. They bartered with street traders and generally were their servants. It was a shock when the ladies got back to Heathrow and had to organize their own bags!

One of the biggest differences Rose has made with the local babies through the Kori Women’s Development Project is in the babies’ nutrition. The mothers now have gardening tools (all second hand and some very old) and grow peanuts, vegetables, rice and sweet potatoes. The mothers are healthier and the babies are healthier. When the ladies visited, they could see first-hand that the babies looked much more rounded than others in the country.

The healthy-looking babies were also wearing or using hand-knitted baby clothes, blankets, and baby-growers. A lot of these clothes were second-hand donated goods that the Kori Development Project collected. They also sent toys, knitted teddies, and little dolls. The locals had never seen these before. There are groups of ladies all over the UK making these items. The mothers were so grateful, they sang Rose and her ladies a song of thanks.

Their Current Fundraiser

Since the visit to the Kori region last Autumn, the group who went decided that toilets were also needed behind the library, as it is in continuous use. They will be adding six latrines, two of which will be for the future women’s activity/sewing room. This area will also be used for sewing, making soap, and other money making ideas, for the women who are getting a bit old for farming. Also on the wish list is building a well on the library site.

Rose and Gill have two fundraising events plus a silent auction arranged to cover the current costs of the Kori Women’s Development Project. Their main cost is for the constant shipping space needed to transport all of the useful items that have been donated for the Project, like gardening tools, clothes, and household goods. We have so much in the first world and in the Kori region, they really have no other hope of getting the things Rose sends to them from any other source locally. These items have a beneficial effect on the whole population in the Kori region and it really boils down to a successful International recycling project.

The Power of One

Never, ever, underestimate the power of action, by one person. Rose is a shining example of what one person can do, and, more importantly, what one person can do to motivate others to help with a cause.

Although English is not her first language (and her children mock her accent unmercifully, as children do), Rose is an excellent communicator, with a wicked sense of humor. She also likes red wine, but as she has a diabetic tendency, she has to manage what she takes in carefully.

Most of Rose’s family lives in the U.K. or in the US., and all have done well and have good, useful jobs and work very hard. The next generation are all on the university route, or already qualified (degreed). Rose goes back to Sierra Leone once a year at least, mostly to keep an eye on the work of the Kori Development Project. Rose has an extensive network of supporters through her career as a midwife, her efforts for her charity, and her participation in Soroptimism.

Rose’s stamina is legendary, and she regularly does all night shifts on Saturdays at the local hospital; Partly to pay the bills for two teenagers, and partly to support her charity. Secretly, Gill thinks Rose just genuinely enjoys delivering babies!

Although there is lots more to Rose’s story, I hope I have been able to give you a little bit of insight into one woman’s effort at making changes in the world. She is a successful citizen of both Sierra Leone and the UK and is a great ambassador for both.

If you would like to donate to the Kori Women’s Development Project, please let me know, and I can facilitate that. In the meantime, you can read more about the Project on their Facebook page.