Hastings Sierra Leone Friendship Link

Six teachers from Hastings, led by schools network organiser Francis Mason, came to spend just over a week here in Hastings in June, teaching in their linked schools. They were Mrs Gladys Davies, Mrs Isatu Kamara, Mrs Letitia Lewis, Mr Sallieu Kamara, Mr Charles Cummings and Mr Sylvanus Campbell. Their packed programme included several visits to enable them to find out about Hastings’ historical and cultural background: a civic reception at the Town Hall kindly hosted by the Mayor, Cllr. Kim Forward and Deputy Mayor Cllr. Alan Roberts; guided tours of the site of the Battle of Hastings and of Hastings Old Town; and Morris Dancing (!) with the Mad Jacks Morris group. On the Wednesday, the fourth annual inter-schools football tournament took place at Filsham Valley School – a nail-biting finish for the boys, this year – followed by a visit to the amazing South Coast College Hastings Station Plaza site and a showing of ‘Africa United’.There were various social occasions shared with their teacher counterparts and members of the Friendship Link – a barbecue, a fish’n'chip supper (of course!), a Chinese meal at Cosmo, a picnic on the beach. But the main thing naturally was the contact with the children. The SL teachers were impressed with the level of commitment and interest they found – the schools have been doing really good work on raising children’s awareness, so that the questions came thick and fast as the children met, at last, people from the village they’d been hearing so much about. The teachers had a great time here in Hastings, but all agreed that the best thing about the trip was working with the children.
The whole trip was funded by a British Council ‘teachers’ reciprocal visit grant’. We had hoped that the initial trips would be followed by a ‘curriculum development grant’ to enable schools to embed global citizenship issues firmly in the

curriculum, based on the Hastings-Hastings twinning. There are indications now that budget cutbacks mean this source of revenue may dry up. Watch this space.