Life in Hastings, Sierra Leone

About the Friendship Link

The Hastings Sierra Leone Friendship Link connects the peoples of Hastings, UK and Hastings, Sierra Leone to promote reconstruction and friendship. It raises money through events and donations to help rebuild Hastings, SL following its devastation in 1997 during the Sierra Leonean civil war. The Link also promotes official twinning, informal exchanges and school-to-school links.

Recent images from our events

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Welcome

Welcome to the website of the Hastings Sierra Leone Friendship Link. We’re a registered charity: nº 1127137. The Link works to further the friendship that has existed between the seaside town of Hastings in East Sussex and the village of Hastings in Sierra Leone since 1999.

Please use the menu on the right to find out more about Hastings and Sierra Leone, about the history of the link leading up to the official twinning of the two towns, about the ways that Hastings UK is helping its Sierra Leonean namesake, and about past and future events. Our current big project is a ‘community resource building’ to put the heart back into the village, which was laid waste in the rebel war. We’re very proud of our school-to-school links, too, though the British Council has now stopped supporting any future teacher exchanges. We’re always trying to raise funds, of course. We didn’t organise a ‘Singathon’ in 2011 as we couldn’t afford the underlying costs, but we published a superb calendar of watercolours of Hastings & 1066 Country for 2012: only a few left! Nevertheless, we’re still desperately short of the money we need to finish the building project, and to fund the next project: to extend and equip the village’s terribly basic ‘health centre’ .  If you have any ideas for raising money on  our behalf or know of any funding streams we may not have applied to, please let us know!

We would be delighted to hear from you, to see you at our meetings, and to have your support. Next meeting: an ordinary meeting in the Town Hall Hastings at 6.05 on Wed 7th March.

Please come back and visit this site often – we try as hard as we can to keep it up to date.

Recent news

Orange Quiz Sheet 2012: Answers and Winners!

Our quizmaster, Nola, has received 5 100% correct sets of answers. As promised, Nola put the names in her woolly hat and drew out 3 winners: Hilary Coote, Roger Mitchell and Phil Bailey, all of Hastings. Commiserations to the equally brilliant B.Moore of Icklesham and H.Godwin of Pett. Congratulations, too, to these who made only [...]

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Minutes of the general meeting of 11th January 2012

Hastings Sierra Leone Friendship Link Minutes of General Meeting of 11th January 2012 Present: Melanie Bray, Diane Reed, Michael Tucker, Yvonne John, Yvette Johnson, Jo Palmer, Nigel Sinden, Cllr Peter Pragnell (chair), John Geater, Christine Boulton-Lane, Ernie Grice, Mat McDonnell, Ray Keene, Eileen & Bill Evans, Edwin Rue, Paul Cabban, Derek Tomblin, Nola McSweeney, Roger [...]

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Inter-schools football tournament a big success

Thanks once more to Roger for supplying the following account of this year’s tournament: The wind blew furiously and kept the rain away last Wednesday 22 June at Filsham Valley School where the annual 7-a-side soccer tournament between schools associated with the Hastings partnership with Sierra Leone took place. In the four years that this [...]

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