Education, Libraries & Music
The story began with the grand-piano of my father, Theo Willemze. When we sold it, the idea was born to save the revenues, as a beginning, to start a project in Sierra Leone to fight illiteracy and promote practicing music. My father always loved to give to charities and by doing this, his rich musical legacy will get a well-deserved sequel. Moreover, we do justice to his philantropic attitude. Together with one of his students (Bobby Rootveld) we are working out this beautiful project.
As fighting illiteracy goes hand in hand with access to books and thus libraries, my role as an employee of the KB, the Dutch National Library comes into play. My wife's connection to Sierra Leone made it easy to visit the Sierra Leone Library Board during my last trip to Freetown. While the libraries in the Netherlands and Sierra Leone are vastly different, the passion for books, newspapers, and magazines is universal. Just as in the Netherlands, promoting literacy plays a crucial role in Sierra Leone. This is something we fully support.
Will you join us in our passion to fight illiteracy and bring Education and Music to the children in Sierra Leone? Please fill out our contact form here if you would like to receive more information about our plans and projects, free of obligation.
Arjé Willemze, Chairman
Our challenge
In Sierra Leone education is not obvious for every child. Education is not free. Children, whose parents don't have money to pay schoolfees, wil not go to school and are thus predestined to stay illiterate the rest of their lives.
We take it as a challenge to tackle this. That's why we want to start an educational project to fight educational disadvantages. In this project all children in a community will get access to education in order to develop their talents, even the poorest.
To address the educational backlog of children in Sierra Leone, we aim to start an education project. The school or project will be named after Theo Willemze and music education will, of course, be given a prominent place.
As you can see in the video, there is no shortage of talent. This video is recorded in Matogo village, where we have run agricultural projects as well.
Promoting literacy is a fight against illiteracy. It's something Sierra Leone urgently needs. That's why we're supporting the Sierra Leone Library Board, the national library of Sierra Leone: to get more people of all ages reading. By working with the KB, Biblionef, and other libraries, we're making a real difference.
In addition to their role as custodians of the written national heritage, they are the most important link in the country for distributing books to district libraries and school libraries. This important task must not be lost. By strengthening this work, we increase the opportunities for disadvantaged children and adults to read. We are happy to contribute to that!
Your donation will help us keep this important work going!
