In 1999, Hastings was contacted by Wayne Addy, a young officer from Sedlescombe who was working under the auspices of the UN. The then British High Commissioner, Sir Peter Penfold, was urging members of the peace-keeping forces to contact UK towns with the same name as Sierra Leonean towns, to see if they could help rebuild the country, which had been devastated by the civil war. The Twinning Officer asked for more details, but it seemed that the overwhelming need for humanitarian aid was beyond the scope of the local authority.
In 2001, at a chance meeting in the House of Commons, the then Defence Minister, Peter Kilfoyle, approached our own MP Michael Foster with much the same request. Michael in turn asked Dr John Geater, Chairman of the local Christian charity LOAF Project, whether they could help. LOAF Project had recently built a school in Rwanda and an orphanage in Romania, and had huge experience in both fund-raising and managing a large project in a developing country. LOAF adopted Hastings SL for its 2001/2002 project. The town’s infrastructure and bridges had been virtually destroyed, so that it was almost impossible to get goods in and out, or for the people to get to work in nearby Freetown. Yet Hastings had been a flourishing town, and can be so again: the airstrip and the regional police training academy are getting back into operation, and the vocational school can be started up again, with outside help.
Local engineer Derek Tomblin identified some 13 bridges that needed totally rebuilding, restoring or upgrading. LOAF appealed to the Hastings & St Leonards community – schools, churches, businesses etc – to sponsor a bridge, and a generous community responded. See Repairing the Bridges.
LOAF sent out a container-load of food, clothing, equipment and £1000 worth of tools donated by the Builders Centre. Items like typewriters and sewing machines will go to re-equip the vocational school once it is repaired, so that the young people can be trained to earn their own living.
A group calling itself the Hastings Sierra Leone Friendship Link was set up, to organise things properly and to ensure continuity when LOAF went on to a new project. It has raised funds, for example through several African Music events in the park, and has continued to send goods out to Hastings. Fortunately, LOAF Project has stepped in again with its support over the matter of the community resource centre HSLFL has undertaken to build. HSLFL, with LOAF Project’s support, is well on the way to raising the necessary funds.
Now, Hastings Borough Council has made the link between our two communities an official ‘twinning’.
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