Sierra Leone International Mission School (SLIMS) looks to build a new, state-of-the-art, technical training institute that will be located on our largest campus in the Wellington community of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The training institute will be a three-story building, initially 40x40 square feet, with plans to expand to 40x80 square feet, and will provide learning opportunities for our K-12 students, as well as additional course offerings for community members to take. Students will begin taking various coding and computer courses beginning as early as age 9 and will have the opportunity to take technical computer courses throughout their schooling at SLIMS.
The building will have a floor entirely dedicated to one computer lab with 150 computers, a floor with classrooms for vocational training and conference rooms/lecture halls to use for business course and leadership training classes, and additional smaller computer labs for more specialized classes.
The new building will be used to teach formal computer skills and business skills, and as an opportunity to minister to the students and community. In addition to formal skills training, we will provide leadership training, and soft-skills business training for both students and community members.
This building will also be directly across from our new Child Prosperity Center, an orphanage that will be home to 100 orphans, as well as our health clinic. Though Sierra Leone is #1 in the world for maternal mortality, our clinic delivers an average of 400-500 babies a year and has never lost a mother in the 22 years that we have been open. Our clinic was also one of very few clinics allowed to remain open during the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2016 and was a recommended site by the government for those looking for treatment. While this building will be a training institute, it will serve the community in vast ways and will truly change the lives of the citizens of Sierra Leone.
With this building, there are great opportunities for us to reach so many unreached people, to provide resources to equip individuals for future workforce success, and to empower the people of Sierra Leone to break the chains of poverty that have plagued their country for so long.
