Berkshire IT firm helps project to build better lives for the very poorest people in Sierra Leone

A life of unimaginable poverty

Hundreds of thousands of people in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa, live in unimaginable squalor. Conditions that most of us would be unable to imagine. The brilliant charity Home Leone (www.homeleone.org) works in this community, battling to improve the lives of those who live there, and we are delighted that A Good Thing was recently able to benefit Home Leone through a furniture donation.

A new destiny

Home Leone owns 25 acres of land in Freetown, where it is building Destiny Village – a place to move families to, away from the slums. Some 56 affordable homes have been built so far, as well as a primary school. The charity operates six business there, and has delivered a long-term clean water supply and an environmentally friendly waste incinerator. Amazingly, 200 people have already been moved to a new life, but there is much more do be done.

Home Leone aims to build affordable, secure homes but also improve sanitation, develop skills and help give people a route out of poverty. Building basic behavioural change is a big part of its strategy.

Doug Ingram, the logistics manager at Home Leone, was thrilled when he spotted five large wooden desks on offer from Infinity Business Solutions (www.infinityit.co.uk) in Reading – he knew they would be perfect for his next container shipment to Sierra Leone. Doug had not been registered with A Good Thing for long at all before the desks became available, so was really pleased when something useful came up straightaway.

While Home Leone sources materials locally wherever possible – in line with its ethos of supporting the local economy – it also ships out items from the UK that may be harder, or more expensive, to obtain in Freetown. Sturdy, hard-wearing desks for the schools and offices were one such item.

So easy to do A Good Thing!

Berkshire-based IT service provider Infinity Business Solutions, founded in 2004 by MD Martin Lowery, was delighted to hear from Home Leone: “We’d moved offices a couple of years back, to a serviced space, and had put our furniture in storage. It was at the back my mind to do something with the desks – give them to someone who needed them – so when I saw the Facebook post from A Good Thing I responded. A couple of weeks later, a collection was arranged.”

Doug Ingram was similarly pleased with how easy the process was. “Once we’d confirmed we wanted to take the desks, it was simply a case of booking a date to collect them. The desks are now ready to be shipped out and will soon be put to great use in Destiny Village. Thank you Infinity, and thank you A Good Thing.”

Doug’s usual route to getting hold of the supplies the charity needs is via a carefully honed contact list – companies that have helped Home Leone in the past, and that he can approach with requests as and when he needs to. He explained that A Good Thing will make this process even easier. He will now have easy access to a steady stream of possible donations, with very little work required by him – leaving him more time to really focus and devote himself to the charity’s valuable work.

We are so delighted that Infinity Business Solutions and Home Leone have been able to do A Good Thing for the vulnerable residents of Freetown.