Welcome to Plan Sierra Leone

A Portuguese sailor, Pedro da Cintra in 1462, founded Sierra Leone and it later became a British colony until it attained self-rule in 1961. It is about 27,925 square km with 16 ethnic groups that constitute a population of about 4.5 million. The largest ethnic group is the Mende, which make up 24% of the population. Though Creole is one of the minority groups but its language, Krio, is the lingua franca and is being spoken by almost every Sierra Leonean. English is the official language.

Sierra Leone has a tropical climate with two seasons – the rainy and dry seasons. The rainy season starts in May and ends in October with July and August experiencing the heaviest rains. The dry season starts in November and ends in April.

Recently however, Sierra Leone experienced a bloody rebel war, which much devastation wrecked on the whole country. Unfortunately, children were conscripted into the fighting forces. After the war about 6,854 children were released and 6, 569 (92%) had been reunited with their families.

There are 12 districts in Sierra Leone and Plan is at the moment operating in three of them in addition to Freetown (Western Area) – Moyamba, Bombali and Port Loko/Western Area. Plan has almost started operations in Kailahun, which would be a new program area. Plan started operations in Sierra Leone in 1976. Plan’s work in Sierra Leone is centered on Education Renewal – a scheme designed in 2000 to rebuild and revitalise the educational facilities damaged during the war. Sponsorship was cancelled in 1998 as a result of the instability in the country by then but is going to resume shortly.