Part‑time Lubec resident and former Maine House Representative Katherine Cassidy is back Downeast for a month or so to raise funds for work she is doing in Sierra Leone. "I can't wait to go back," she says of her work with the Home of Hope orphanage and Touch the Sky nonprofit in the African country.
     In 2015 Cassidy visited Uganda while working with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to teach organizational skills to the country's farmers. She immediately saw needs that could be met, such as fundraising for the purchase of almost 50 bicycles over two years to help farmers with transportation. "It made me realize I could make a difference on the ground," she said at the time. She made plans to return to Africa after her CRS work was over to start a marathon at Kenya's Lake Nakuru National Park, based on her success founding the Bay of Fundy International Marathon, and to work with girls in Uganda. As is often the case with the best-laid plans, the nations' politics changed, and Cassidy landed in Sierra Leone on a short‑term CRS mission. While she loved her previous CRS work in Africa, she says of her experience in Sierra Leone, "This was different. I have been captivated."
     The same ability to see needs and act that led her to start an international marathon and supply bicycles to farmers has informed her work in Sierra Leone. While she originally thought she would find work with a non-governmental organization in the country's capital, she met Emmanual Kamara, who has built the Home of Hope orphanage for girls in the community of Kambia over a four‑year period and hopes to have the doors open within the next few months. She ended up spending most of her time there, teaching, holding listening sessions in two districts and developing program ideas to help support orphaned girls. It wasn't what she was expecting, "But what has happened so far has been beyond anything I could imagine," she says.
     Sierra Leone was wracked by the Ebola virus in 2014, which is but one factor of many that contributes to a high rate of female orphans in the country. Many of them live with relatives, but Cassidy explains that this is often less than optimal. "When an orphan comes to a family, it's another mouth to feed, so she's often considered a burden." Guardians will favor their own children, with orphans given a larger share of the family's work load. Laundry, cooking and cleaning "will fall to the orphans," she says. With education costing about $35 per year per child, parents and guardians often don't have enough to pay. The World Bank estimates gross national income per capita for Sierra Leone is $340, with over 72% of the population living on less than $1 per day. The International Monetary Fund ranked Sierra Leone as the 14th poorest nation in 2017.
     Supporting the orphan girls with education, safe housing, nutritious meals and vocational skills are just some of the plans that Cassidy and Kamara have formed with their Sierra Leone‑based nonprofit, Touch the Sky. Cassidy is also working on forming a United States‑based nonprofit of the same name. The Home of Hope orphanage is almost completed, with Cassidy back in the states to do a final push of fundraising. While she estimates that the home's annual operating budget will be about $20,000, she and Kamara won't be waiting to amass that amount before opening its doors. Permits are in the works, including background checks and mandatory training for staff.
Plans and programs for orphan girls
     When it opens, the Home of Hope will house the girls, ranging in age from eight to 17, full‑time. While she and Kamara encourage family relationships to continue, she says that there are three or four girls who "have really horrible home situations." She adds, "The orphanage will give them a safe, protected place." The home's motto is "Love lives here." Many pressures exist, including teen pregnancy, with national law requiring a girl to leave school as soon as she begins to show because she would be considered a negative influence on others. Cassidy explains that girls are considered less valuable to a family than boys, and while marriage under the age of 18 is illegal in the country, the nation's Customary Marriage Act of 2007 allows for child bride marriages, which are still a tribal tradition, to take place.
     The goals of the Touch the Sky foundation include programs to enrich the girls' and young women's lives. "Getting girls who have dropped out of school to go back means a high level of proper supports," Cassidy notes. Support includes mentoring programs to keep the vulnerable in school, community education about teen pregnancy, food programs that will be for girls and boys and vocational training. Cassidy explains, "The problem in villages is that there are no role models for educated women. So if they graduate from secondary school, they need to have a future and to be role models for young women." Skills that women can develop to earn livings include tailoring, catering, hair-styling and working with computers. "These are jobs that can lead to independent incomes."
     Programs associated with the Home of Hope have started, including a breakfast program, the Home of Hope breakfast bus. "It's the easiest piece. For $500 a month we can feed 17 girls breakfast." When she saw that girls were surviving on one meal a day, a dinner bowl of rice, she knew that such a program would go a long way to helping the girls get through their day. With the help of social media fundraising sites, which Cassidy had relied on for the Ugandan bicycle project, she has been able to feed the 17 orphan girls for three months and hopes to start another three‑month cycle soon.
     Cassidy realizes that with the Home of Hope's larger goals, and even with what would be considered a modest annual budget by many, she must search farther afield for funding. She envisions returning to the states a few times a year to pursue that work. "I never realized how much I was needed and how much I could make a difference," she says of the work. "It's the most challenging place, physically and emotionally, that I've ever been. But the stronger the challenge, the more compelled I am."
     Internet communications are severely limited in Sierra Leone, complicating the fundraising and one of the reasons Cassidy anticipates returning to the states regularly. While Downeast she welcomes invitations to speak to groups and individuals about her work. For those interested in learning more or donating, she can be found on Facebook, one of the only ways she has of communicating and researching when in Sierra Leone. For those who wish to contact her while she is in the United States with donations or other inquiries she may be reached at: Orphan Girls, c/o Katherine Cassidy, 5 Somersville Ave., Lubec, ME 04652.