Shade - Self-help And Development Everywhere

 Kambia     Sierra Leone

http://www.shade-sl.com/     << Visit Website

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Shade - Self-help And Development Everywhere Charity Profile

The Self-Help and Development Everywhere (SHADE) is a secular, non profit making and non-governmental organization, established in 2000 by a group of like-minded Sierra Leonean with a wealth and varied experiences from organisations like Action aid, Oxfam, GTZ, Norwegian Refugee council (NRC). It started as a voluntary and community based organisation called Community Health Service Volunteers-Sierra Leone (CHSV/SL) with the aim of helping to save humanity through popular community volunteerism and participation. Later, because of its collaborative efforts, this voluntary organisation was transformed to an NGO called SHADE through the advice and dedication of a British citizen called Christian Boas.Mr. Boas is one of the people who are always ready to respond to the social needs of poor communities and institutions. The organisation is a community based in Kambia district, the smallest, the poorest and possibly the worst affected districts by the more than one decade of civil conflict in Sierra Leone.

Since 2000/2001, the organisation has organised several community sensitisation and awareness raising programmes in addition to mainstream project implementation. It is also a member of various development and peace building networks, including Concern group Sierra Leone, Sierra Leone Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (SLANGO) and a strong advocate of Democracy and Human Rights including the rights of the disabled and the helpless.

The major factors that motivated the founding members were abject poverty and the desire to save humanity from the claws of hunger, disease; poverty and starvation that had eclipsed the Sierra Leone society for more than three decades of political and social instability; and at the same time facilitates the process of economic development of the people.

In addition to the death toll and the displacement of over 70% of the population of the country as a result of a more than one decade of bloody conflict, the widespread human rights abuses and the destruction of private and public property, power stations and agro businesses, an equally alarming situation was that the war was being waged by mainly child and adolescent soldiers. This militarization of the youth and the unprecedented degree of violence directed at the civilian population contributed to the disintegration of the community and family structures, including the traditional community based social and economic "safety-nets".