Reseed

We believe that by creating sustainable employment and empowering individuals and communities to reach financial stability, we have a chance of lifting thousands of people out of poverty. Having stable income can mean people don’t have to choose between sending their children to school or seeking healthcare. Employment and sustainable income generation provides vital income to support families and communities, unshackling people from poverty and giving fair opportunities.   

We work with our local team on the ground on projects that focus on increasing economic empowerment and growing financial stability for individuals and communities in Sierra Leone.

Our Vision, Mission & Values:

01  Financial Empowerment

Our projects aim to create, lead to, or support as many sustainable jobs, income generation streams and opportunities for local people and communities in Sierra Leone as we can.

02 Transparency

We want to donate as much of our funding as possible to the causes we support and aim to be as transparent as possible with our financial reporting.

03 Capacity Building

We practice what we preach, and any new project we set up we ensure are run by locally employed people. We support our local team with capacity building; developing their skills and careers.

04 Impact

We take our projects seriously and want to ensure we provide the largest positive impact we can. We’re not afraid of admitting our mistakes and believe it’s important to learn from them. We review our projects on iterative cycles and work with our team on the ground to adapt and respond, striving to improve project outcomes and impact.

Project: Microfinance

For many Sierra Leoneans it is a daily challenge to support their family and the challenges are especially acute for families who only have one care giver, especially women. We’re providing vital loans (~£50-£500) to support local people to launch or grow their own businesses; ranging from tailors to hair dressers, to give them a core income to support themselves and their family. 

This programme will not only provide vital capital to get small local businesses off the ground, but will also be given mentorship and support to ensure they can build a sustainable and profitable business. The programme included hiring three local business officers, and supporting them and our programme director Karim to train further in the provision of microloans, finance management and related skills.  

Project: Agriculture

The rural side of our sustainable livelihoods projects supports subsistence farmers take the leap to generating income to support themselves and their families. The agriculture programme is currently in across six communities in Moyamba and Koya Chiefdoms. This project started in December 2021 with our agriculture officer (MC - Mohammed Conteh) doing surveys and data collection in the field, and utilising his skills and expertise we designed our pilot programme. Direct beneficiaries receive what we call a yield booster - seeds and tools of their choice, followed by an investment to develop organic compost and seed storage and community seed bank which benefits the whole community. 

We estimate that for an investment of £2000 in each community, we can support 150 people - so thats 900 people across six communities.

 Project: Up-skilling and Employability Skills for Young people

Our US&E programme incorporates two elements: 1) Supporting selected individuals to attend and complete a two year course at the local vocational centre to gain essential skills on their path to seeking employment or becoming entrepreneurs. These courses range from catering and nursing to mechanical and electrical engineering. 2) Hosting employability skills workshops for students from the vocational centres to introduce and teach them key skills that will empower them to seek formal employment upon graduating.

Project: Bike Shops

Reseed supports new and existing bike shops to provide sustainable income opportunities for shop managers, employees, mechanics, apprentices and casual workers. This programme draws elements of our microfinance, business skills and up-skilling programmes together and coordinates with national and international partners  Beyond the tangible outcomes of the project life-cycle, having a functional bike shop and skilled mechanics in various towns across Sierra Leone has a great impact on the wider cycling community, inspiring and increasing participation and environmentally friendly transport options.

Project principles

Here at Reseed we are passionate about supporting our Sierra Leonean team to become more independent and gain skills which will allow them to progress in their careers.

We’re proud to work in an agile and iterative way, learning and adapting our programmes on short cycles. If you’d like to know more about the programme design and what we have been learning please don’t hesitate to email us ([email protected]).