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By Marilyn King
Focus 1000 in collaboration with Kombra Network, has held a two-day Savings and Loans Planning Meeting as a means of strategizing their Savings and Loans project.
The planning meeting which attracted Focus 1000 and Kombra Network stakeholders across the country took place on Thursday 2nd March and Friday 3rd March 2023 at the Adelaide Hall, Robert Street Freetown.
Focus1000 Health and Nutrition Person, Christly Williams, while giving the overview and objectives of the project, said among other things that they always promote breastfeeding. She continued that they engaged parents to be able to grow crops locally in their backyards, so that they will have access to their crops.
She said if the parents sold those crops they will be able to get money for themselves. She said they will also be able to eat the food that they grow. She stated that the idea of Kombra Farm is to let the community has access to food. She said the communities will come up and be able to do their savings.
She noted that they have made contributions in the Kombra Farms and maintained that they were holding the meeting to discuss the farms and report on how they had gone so far. They also talked about the loan scheme, and they want to put idea together and see the project how to harmonize the process in districts. She concluded that they will also discussed about the climate change in Sierra Leone and what they are doing in their different communities.
The National Secretary of Kombra Network, Donald Theo Harding, said the time Focus 1000 started in 2013, they started with only the Christians and Muslims, CHRISTAG and ISLAG. He furthered that Focus 1000 called these two groups together because over 90% of Sierra Leoneans are religious and from either religions. He pointed out that Focus 1000 deemed it very important to add religious people because, according to the religious people of Focus 1000, there is nowhere in Sierra Leone that is no Church or Mosque. He said Focus 1000 decided to bring the religious leaders because they are the best people to pass on the messages. He said Focus 1000 later decided to bring the Market Women, and have seen the impact the Market Women has brought. He also said during Ebola so many people were dying, so Focus 1000 decided to bring in the traditional healers. He said they also called the Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) and also they decided that they need their messages to pass on, so they called the Media. He stated that they formed all of them together and formed one Network that is called “THE KOMBRA NETWORK”. He concluded that Focus 1000 is about Women and Children. Update from the Kombra Farm Project by districts climaxed the occasion.
