Water For Young Sierra Leonean Entrepreneurs!

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Hello everyone, 

We are Laurens, Tetsuo and Rolf, students of Delft University of Technology and as part of our minor International Entrepreneurship & Development, we are doing a project with the Strategic Entrepreneurship Program Sierra Leone (SEP-SL). Their goal is to decrease youth unemployment and stimulate entrepreneurship in Sierra Leone. 

The SEP-SL is a social enterprise with the aim to develop and support the talents of young entrepreneurs in Sierra Leone, with a focus on the tailoring industry. Currently, the SEP runs a tailoring facility in Freetown where the students develop their skills and gain practical experience. They produce beautiful bags and face masks made from recycled and deadstock fabrics. These products are sold in the Netherlands and the revenue is used to invest in the organisation to sustain and grow the business. 

But why do they need your support? The program has proven to be a great success and is ready for expansion. The SEP-SL team is planning to build a new facility in Macdonald, about 40 km from the capital Freetown. This is a rural and still undeveloped area with no access to clean drinking water. Therefore, we are helping the SEP with establishing a water supply system for their new tailoring institute. The system will provide clean water for drinking and sanitation for the tailors but also for the community in Macdonald. 

With the help of the TU Delft and the University Twente, we want to design and build a sustainable and affordable rope pump for the new tailoring institute. We will do the assembly in January 2021 together with the people in Sierra Leone, so they have the right knowlegde to properly maintain the pump. The costs are €750 for the development and transportation of the pump and €2750 for the construction of the well which makes a total of €3500. For (technical) questions do not hesitate to contact us. We students will pay for our own overhead costs, so every penny goes to the water system! 

In the current situation, with a global pandemic having massive effects on fragile economies, it is crucial that projects like the SEP continue to help young professionals develop their talents and invest in their future. We are excited to be a part of the SEP and to help the organisation achieve a sustainable expansion, to provide more young Sierra Leonean entrepreneurs with a better future. 

 

Do you have any questions or suggestions about our project?

Do not hesitate to send an e-mail to us: students@sep-sl.org 

Companies and organisations, that would like to support our project and at the same time provide their employees with colorful facemasks, can receive more facemasks. The facemasks are very suitable for christmasboxes. We can also put your logo on our crowdfunding page. For more information please contact us. 

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Water in Sierra Leone!

01-01-2021 | 19:00 Dear supporter,  We are happy to let you know that our project in Sierra Leone has ended successfully and the rope pumps have been placed in Sierra Leone. With your help, we raised €5.773 for young entrepreneurs in Sierra Leone and were able to build 3 rope pumps for the people in Sierra Leone. In the last few weeks the pumps were build and installed in Sierra Leone. Together with our Sierra Leonean colleagues, we were able to build the pumps and helped SEP-SL to continue and expand its business. The first two pumps are all fully functioning and the third pump will be finished soon as the well needs to be dug deeper.  In the meantime, SEP-SL received a lot of positive comments about the rope pumps and many people requested the pump to be built in their compound or community. SEP-SL is really happy with all this attention and intends to turn the rope pump building in a business. We hope that this business will succeed and even more Sierra Leoneans will have safe access to drinking water in the future. The three of us will stay connected to the project as advisors and help to manage the building of new pumps.  To finish the project we delivered the engraved names of our biggest supporters to the proud owners of the new rope pump in Sierra Leone. This metal sheet will soon be attached to the pump. SEP-SL also started with the production of new products like cheerful laptop-cases and pencil-cases. If you’re interested in such a happy product, please let us know or take a look on this site: https://slyi.nl/shop/  Cheers,  Rolf, Tetsuo and Laurens
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