Investor Trip to Sierra Leone, West Africa
October 3-10, 2005

This is a trip designed for members of the Common Ground Investors Council. As investors we will be visiting the people of Sierra Leone in a spirit of partnership and solidarity, recognizing that they are tackling incredibly challenging issues in their daily work to rebuild their country. This will be a unique opportunity to visit a country that is recovering from ten years of violent civil war. We will meet and learn from its people, and witness the breadth and depth of the extraordinary work that is being undertaken to transform the conflict and bring about a sustained peace.

Trip participants will meet in Europe and fly to Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone. Once in Freetown, participants will be fully briefed on the history of Sierra Leone and current conditions. We will hear how Search for Common Ground is addressing the issues that are key to building peaceful communities throughout the country. We hope to spend a couple of nights outside of the city, allowing us to experience the richness of a rural community in this part of West Africa.

Search for Common Ground has two major areas of work in Sierra Leone - it's countrywide media (through its radio programming - and known as Talking Drum Studio) and it's community peace building unit. These two activities work together in a powerful and synergistic manner, and deal with many varied topics, such as re-integrating child soldiers and returning ex-combatants, HIV-AIDS, corruption, education, health and women's rights. Talking Drum Studio has been enormously successful and it's programming reaches about 90% of the country.

Sierra Leone is a beautiful, tropical, resource-rich country - while at the same time it is at the very bottom of most of the UN indicators for poverty. So the trip will be fascinating, inspiring and challenging. We will be based in a comfortable hotel in Freetown and then escorted on all our excursions throughout the week. The cost of flights from Europe to Freetown varies between $1,000 to $1,500 depending on availability. The costs on the ground are approximately $1,700 per person, including all hotels and transport.

This promises to be a 'once in a lifetime' experience. If you are interested or have further questions please contact Jane Shaw, the trip leader, at jane.shaw5@btopenworld.com or Philip Hellmich at phellmich@sfcg.org or (202) 777-2202.

Please click here if you are unable to attend but would like to make an online contribution to support our programmes.