Alhaji N’Jai, left, with students his organization, Project 1808, has supported in Sierra Leone. N’Jai’s efforts have led to the creation of the University of Koinadugu, set to open in January.
Not many students are like Abdulai A. Conteh. At least not in Sierra Leone’s Koinadugu District. He’s getting ready for college.
Conteh, now 20, did not see that coming just a few years ago: “I did not have that chance.”
For Conteh, and almost every other child growing up in the Koinadugu District, going to college isn’t realistic. Nestled in the northern portion of Sierra Leone, the country’s largest district is far away from any university. Freetown — which is a difficult full day of travel away — is simply out of reach for most residents. Tuition and housing costs put higher education even further out of reach.
“When you live in this district or another district or other part of the country, to educate you have a lot challenges along the line that will lead you to drop out,” Conteh says in a phone call with Isthmus.
But Conteh, and dozens of people who grew up in his district, are set to start classes at the University of Koinadugu, slated to open in January.
“If a university is in Koinadugu then people will have that interest and the courage to attend,” Conteh says.
The main force behind the University of Koinadugu is a man who could have used it decades ago. Alhaji N’Jai managed to go to college in Michigan only after escaping his country’s civil war. Eventually he joined a post-doctorate program at UW-Madison. It was here, on the second floor of the Memorial Union, that he saw a display about the famed Wisconsin Idea.
“Straight then I said to myself ‘this is actually what we need in Sierra Leone,’” N’Jai says.
N’Jai is from Ganya, one of the poorest towns in Koinadugu, which is one of the poorest parts of Sierra Leone — one of the world’s poorest countries.
Few people in Sierra Leone even know where the town is. “It’s a dot on the map,” N’Jai jokes.
N’Jai attended an American mission school, which relied on hand-me-down books, until fifth grade. N’Jai read everything he could. But then violence forced his family to Kabala, Koinadugu’s largest town. He continued school there and eventually was admitted to the University of Sierra Leone in Freetown.
As he inched closer to graduation, the country’s civil war raged on outside of the city. In 1996, N’Jai was accepted on a one-year foreign exchange program at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.
“I managed to escape war, but also to make it to the U.S.,” N’Jai says.
Shortly after he left, the military took over Freetown. Communication with his family fell nearly silent. N’Jai pressed on, finishing his degree in biological sciences.
Western Michigan eventually accepted him for a master’s program even though N’Jai was unable to obtain his full school transcripts because of the war. In 2007 he arrived in Madison. “It’s been a long journey for me,” N’Jai says.
In Madison, N’Jai became enthralled with the Wisconsin Idea, which holds “that education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom.”
N’Jai finished his degree and worked as a scientist, but wanted to do more to help his home region. In 2011, he started a nonprofit called Project 1808, left his career and academic ambitions in the U.S. and returned to Sierra Leone. N’Jai and his nonprofit started supporting students like Conteh.
The group pays for tuition, books and uniforms, and provides tutoring and mentoring, says Linda Vakunta, Project 1808’s executive director, who splits her time between Madison and Sierra Leone.
“We’ve seen these kids from when they were in elementary school and now they are like grown folks,” says Vakunta. “The outcomes that we’ve seen is that they can be so much more if they are given more skills, if they are given the adequate environment to grow.”
Project 1808 has supported more than 500 students in Koinadugu. All of them stayed in school and passed national exams — quite an achievement in a district where teenage pregnancy and dropout rates are among the highest in the country.
“Without them, I would not be at this point,” Conteh says of Project 1808.
Ever since Project 1808 began working in the district, residents have had one major ask. “When we came in 2012 there was a big banner that was requesting a college,” says Vakunta, laughing.
After years of planning and construction, the college is scheduled to open in January. N’Jai and Project 1808 have found several willing helpers in the Badger State, including Milwaukee’s Feeding Mouths, Filling Minds and Strides For Africa from Madison. The groups have raised funds, volunteered time and helped organize. “They just say ‘you know what, I’m going to help you through the process,’ and I think that’s how it’s been really possible,” N’Jai says.
Some of the groups’ members have visited Koinadugu to pitch in. “We were only there for a three-day period but the connections we made it seem like we were there for three weeks,” says Chris Jimieson, the executive director for Strides For Africa — which has put one new well in the district and is working on a solar-powered well and pump for the college.
Project 1808 is more than halfway to its $115,000 fundraising goal. Organizers are confident that they will be able to enroll 70 students in the first semester. There will be at least two in-person professors, while instructors from the University of Sierra Leone have agreed to teach courses online or via video chat.
The school will focus on agribusiness and public health. Several University of Wisconsin departments and faculty are helping N’Jai develop curriculum and there’s talk of a study abroad partnership between the two schools.
The Koinadugu District is rich in natural resources. Vakunta calls it the bread basket of Sierra Leone, “but it’s also the most underserved district.” So agriculture and mining that happens in the district hardly benefits the people there. Farming companies bring in outside workers, because there’s not much skilled labor in the Koinadugu District.
The students who can find a way to go to college usually don’t come back. Vakunta says it leads to “brain drain,” with the most gifted and fortunate fleeing.
“It’s truly about skills development to fully optimize Koinadugu District and the great youth that are already there,” Vakunta says.
Maria Nicholas-Groves, the founder of Feeding Mouths, Filling Minds, hopes the university can become a job generator — both by creating jobs at the university and training students to create “businesses that solve community challenges and develop opportunities for other people.”
Twenty-year-old Mariama Barrie, who is enrolling in the college, is eager to be one of them. “I want to become a good somebody in the district in order to motivate girls that are not taking education serious,” Barrie says.
With dedicated and ambitious students, Project 1808 believes it can reverse the district’s fortunes. “Sierra Leone is a post-conflict country, it’s a post-war country, but that doesn’t have to be its only story,” Vakunta says.
They want to create something different. Different for the Koinadugu District, for Sierra Leone, maybe even for the world. “Why not?” Vakunta asks.
For N’Jai, seeing one of the poorest areas of the world suddenly dreaming big is galvanizing.
“If we can make it work,” N’Jai says, “I think we have something that will definitely transform this society.”
