Open Letter: President Ernest Bai Koroma please save Annie Walsh

Dear Mr President, I write to you with a heavy heart, with a sadness that causes sleepless nights for not just me but many other Sierra Leonean women across the world. Your Excellency I am not too proud to beg and today I wash your feet with my tears. I fall on my knees and plead with you to use your executive powers and prevent our heritage from being destroyed. The Annie Walsh Memorial School is the oldest girls’ school in West Africa. Those buildings are so much more than bricks and mortar. For over 150 years the institution has educated girls across West Africa, from Lati Hyde Forster to the present day the school has produced some of West Africa’s greatest women. There may be a need to relocate the school but the heritage should not be lost. Those buildings represent the strength, resilience and stability of the Sierra Leonean woman. The woman that remains steadfast as everything around her crumbles. She has endured. She needs to be loved and not destroyed. She needs to be preserved. In the UK it would be a ‘listed’, or protected, building. It has so much more potential than a market. The Annie Walsh represents the education of the girl child across Africa. In Sierra Leone it reminds of what we once were and represents the possibility of what we could be again. It motivates us to be our best. Your Excellency, in those walls we made life-long friends. We learnt that “respect pas belleful”. On its firm foundation we found rocks of integrity, we learnt to meet success or failure with courage and humble grace and today we continue to walk zealously for our ideals. The Annie Walsh girls proudly take our place in the world.  Past and present we stand alongside our sisters in other educational institutions who have contributed to Sierra Leone and beyond. We stand among the mothers, daughters, sisters and wives who have held things together and like those buildings we have endured. The symbolic presence of the school is significant not only to its alumni but to everyone who cares about developing the girl child. It cuts to the heart of how much we value our women. Your Excellency you promised this was a priority. If you care about the women of Sierra Leone do not break our heartsby breaking the walls of our school.  The East End of Freetown does not need another market. What it needs is more educational institutions. The Annie Walsh could be the centre of regenerating the East End, and should not be written off. Your Excellency, I come to you like the mother who begged King Solomon to spare her son. I pray that you show the same wisdom. You can save our school. We need you to support the management to transform it to a place that attracts and inspires visitors from across the world. You are our leader, please hear our cry and save our school. Khadija Mansaray, London, UK (C) Politico 14/02/13