Sierra Leone is a sunken place: A guide for young Sierra Leoneans who must grow a garden from a gutter

Keynote Address at the Sierra Leone Arts Culture Festival 2020: #SLACfest Beyond Borders -October 27

Thank you to the Sierra Leone Arts & Culture Festival and everyone of you making time to fellowship here today. 

Salone No Fine

I’ll be speaking first on Sierra Leone as our ‘Sunken Place’ and on our collective trauma. Then I'll talk about my experiences as a creative and an entrepreneur. Lastly I'll share what has worked for me as a child of the diaspora who keeps one leg in and another out of Sierra Leone while trying to make an impact on my corner in our gutter of a country. 

Make no mistake about it. Salone noh fine. And when I say e noh fine I’m not talking about the aesthetics. I’m talking about the basics—social welfare and utilities that a majority of our citizens still lack—clean water, three meals a day, electricity, for girls protection from sexual violence and youth access to skills and opportunities. 

In addition to this there is NO protection under the law. Our justice system is corrupt, our policing heavy handed and easily manipulated by “orders from above”. Pray you never ever find yourself with a legal matter against the state or anyone because the system is set up to fleece and frustrate. 

Sierra Leone is a sunken place and it has been so long before now. With each year, citizens sink deeper, connected by our shared trauma both at home and in the diaspora.

Since the civil war we have carried our scars--marked both by our lived experiences and the stories of others. As if that wasn't heavy enough then Ebola came, and then the mudslide too killing over 1000 people in just one day. In between and during these incidents government officials pillage the country under the guise of national development and emergency relief. From Sababu Education Project to Free Healthcare and Ebola, so so tiff tiff and absolutely no accountability. If you are a citizen of Sierra Leone every bad thing that happens sinks you deeper into the sunken place--den just dey du wi, wi noh able tok, wi noh able move. All tin na buffcase.

Collective Trauma

How many of you have had a good idea, or an opportunity, something you wanted to start in Sierra Leone. When you told your Sierra Leonean loved ones chances are they tried to dissuade you. They told you it would never work in Sierra Leone or as long as it had to do with Sierra Leoneans. You should not take that job there. The business you want to start will fail. Sierra Leone doesn't have x or y. They seal it all with a story about someone just like you who failed trying to do the same. 

I used to think the cause of the negative national talk was self hate but now I know it's trauma. There are three types of trauma; acute, chronic, and complex. And all of us are on the spectrum; either we witnessed one bad event, prolonged exposure to everyday suffering caused by corruption, and or a string of disasters both natural and manmade. The latter is complex and that's the trauma we live with collectively. We are in a sunken place. Salone e noh fine. No make nobody lie to you. 

Setbacks are a part of the process

At the end of 2017 I went to Sierra Leone to try to build my marketing company again. The first time I had attempted to do so 18 months earlier it had boomed and burst all in a matter of a year. I got one big contract with a brewery, flew in a manager from Ghana to lead our operations in Freetown. I thought surely we are about to blow up. I was in for a rude awakening. Some of the staff of the company we worked for repeatedly sabotaged the work. They were not happy that I had won the contract,  no bribe or kickback paid. In that same period I landed a contract with a baby food company which would eventually send us into bankruptcy when the client refused to pay. We had already started work. We had a contract, he broke it. Then he lied and said we didn't do the work. Thankfully I had the receipts of the lies but not being paid, for months put us deep into the red. I had to leave and regroup--I let my staff go. 

In November 2017 I was back in Freetown on the invitation of AYV, to start a conversation about reviving the Vickie Remoe Show. Since it was election season and being a  journalist I engaged people everywhere I went to ask how they were planning to vote. Majority of people I spoke to said they wanted a change of government but that they would never publicly share. They were afraid. 

I wondered: What kind of a place is this, where you can't even talk about what you think without fear? I believed at the time that we needed to openly discuss the state of Sierra Leone. I decided I would do that because the stakes were too high to let fear of reproach silence us. I used my social media platforms to amplify conversation around what was at stake—the failed social contract and the basic welfare that was still a dream for the majority of  citizens. I was attacked, and threatened, and much of it continues to this day.

It has been 2.5 years since we got a change of government but Salone still noh fine. Though we did reduce extreme poverty during Ebola and our citizens are not worse off, they are also no better off. Economically we are in a state of stagnation and our collective psyche is still in a sunken place. Add to that deep political divide amplified by warring politicians trying to frame the narrative of our suffering to dodge their responsibilities with accusations and counter accusations, press releases, voice notes, screen grabs of finger pointing. 

If at first you don’t succeed—Try Again

It was against this backdrop that I went back on the road to produce the fifth season of the Vickie Remoe Show, we went to Liberia on a road trip, filmed conservation at Tacugama and baked bread at Sierra Leone’s oldest bakery--Red Lion. Although, AYV had promised to cover production for the show that season when it came time to start they did not. I ended our MOU and used my earnings to self finance the show. In place of production they offered me airtime. Building anything in Sierra Leone takes grit and sacrifice. Even those people who use their proximity to power or government money to expedite or bypass due process soon realize this. I didn't make money from Season 5, I didn't have the best team, my equipment was old and many things were held together by tape. My car broke down many times like when we went to film a segment on a plastic to tile recycling cooperative inside Makeni and it overheat and wouldn't start. Even though the 10-part season was full of shortcomings I was ecstatic and proud of what we had accomplished. 

It is possible in the sunken place

For the next season, I knew I could not grow from the previous to the next if I couldn't mobilize more resources so I launched a fundraiser. I set the goal at $10,000. I can tell you now that I felt a lot of fear putting that fundraiser up. I imagined all the things people would say from the sunken place when it popped up on their feed. 

I believed that the work to tell our stories needed to be done. Yes it is my TV Show but the content is for the community. I guessed it would take me 3 months to get to our goal but in five weeks I raised $15,000. I had donations of $500 and $1000. I had $5 and $15. I got 200,000 Leones and 1 million. Even from a sunken place, Sierra Leoneans across the world had leaned in for me and for our stories. 

Because of your support I was able to hire a producer and a production assistant. It gave me confidence to keep moving forward. Then I was approached by a mobile company and we were able to sign a sponsorship deal. I leveraged the support the online community had given me as proof of interest in my content. 

In 18 months I took the Vickie Remoe Show from negative revenue to a gross revenue of $30,000 which gave me new equipment and a team. I hadn't done so with political connections or compromising my integrity. I had taken no shortcuts. What got me there was the belief that if I could tell stories to Sierra Leoneans I could uplift them from the sunken place maybe not all at once but slowly. I believed that my stories could revive belief in Sierra Leone, and replace faith where fear had taken hold. 

Build For Impact 

While money was the reward in that one instance, profit is not what drove me to make the show or what drives anything else I do.

When it comes to Sierra Leone if profit is your sole motive then your impact will be minimal if at all, and the people who you employ, or partner with will treat you the same way you treat the country—exploitatively.

Since 2007 when I left my life in New York City to give Sierra Leone a try, what has driven me is impact. For the past 13 years I’ve asked myself the same three questions: What can I do to positively impact our national consciousness? What can I do to  create opportunities for others and myself? What can I do to solve problems with other Sierra Leoneans?

While I was producing my show I was also building my marketing and communications agency. I bid for a contract with UNICEF. I interviewed and won the contract. No bribes were paid, nobody used sababu to get me that gig. 

I had that contract and others too and as my inflow grew so too did my team. I had never had an office in Sierra Leone. For years I worked from anywhere as long as there was wifi or a table. Bliss had been my office, Balmaya, New Brookfields Hotel, and Radisson had all been my offices. 

Start Where You Are With What You Have 

But when you start having six people meeting everyday at various places it becomes a lot. We needed our own space. I decided if Google and Apple and Facebook had started in garages and bedrooms then my veranda in my childhood home was going to have to be good enough for us. 

So the same veranda where I had once played as a child was now the headquarters of the Freetown branch of VR&C Marketing. This time last year eight of us would go to work on the veranda, I trained my staff on the veranda, we held client meetings there too. The veranda was also sometimes a photo studio, and other times a video set. I used the resources I had that wouldn’t give me additional overheads and at that time it was the veranda. 

Within my family’s compound there is a building that my late grandmother had built. It had been a skills training school right after the war, and in more recent times a daycare. Last year this time it was derelict. Since my grandmother passed in 2011, the building had become an eyesore that we tried to ignore. 

One day as I was walking past it, it struck me that it could be something more. 

I started with a small investment of 10 million ($1000). Whenever I had liquidity I put money towards the building. When things were tight I stopped. 

A little over a year after we started construction the team and I left the veranda and we moved into what is now our office. Construction is ongoing and in another year that building which was once dilapidated will be a startup lab where creatives and techies like you will find a community to solve local problems and resources too.

How to make it in Sierra Leone 

As a third culture kid who is both local and foreign, trying to make a positive impact in  Sierra Leone here are some of the things that have worked for me.

First and foremost I learned early on that proximity to power was not power. As such I have not used my privilege or access to power to cheat the system which the majority of Sierra Leoneans can’t escape. I don’t call my Uncle or Aunty to call their friend to give me what I have not earned. And when people let me down, I brush it off and keep going understanding that let downs are a part of sunken place syndrome.

I am impeccable with my word at all times whether with my personal commitments, or in business. I always do what I say and what I can’t do I do not take on. In a sunken place where everyone works with fear and trauma there is no trust. If you want to break out of that cycle you must honor your word and commitments. 

No matter what is going on around you, stay focused on honing your craft and improving your skill. As a creative and an entrepreneur even when you do not have clients, when there is no money, you must continue to create, produce, and learn. 

Consider your life as a lab. Be in a state of constant experimentation noting the inputs from yourself that yield the best results. In the sunken place the only way to start the process of change, is to work from within. The changes and growth you see with yourself and your work will give you the confidence you need to keep moving forward. Practice all the time. Try new recipes that no one will taste, take photos no one will see, write stories no one will read, design a dress no one will wear. Just keep doing and learning, unlearning  and creating. 

Put more of your time cultivating relationships with peer creators or those who are up and coming as much as you would court attention from the big allayjoes. I promise you that the returns on your investment to your peers and the next generation will be more fruitful than any President wearing your designs or any minister giving you an endorsement. When you invest in your peers, they will show up for you. They will promote you. And slowly you will collectively build an ecosystem that supports yours and their work, and increases your visibility in a meaningful way. Don’t overlook people who are growing and bypass them for those at the top. If you can build with a collective you become stronger collectively. 

Last and most importantly while it is good to have a national view my advice to you is to focus less on Sierra Leone. Think smaller—maybe it’s your community, or your company or one sector. 

Imagine that Sierra Leone as a whole is a gutter but it is your gutter. It is the only gutter that you have. Can you clean the entire gutter? Absolutely not but you can fix your side. 

I have found my side of the gutter. It is the creative sector. It is videos and pictures and stories. It is my company. It is my family’s compound. What I am doing in my gutter is planting and nurturing seeds. I’m focused on learning on my side, I keep creating, and always impeccable with my word. From time to time I let others in to show them how I’m tending to the garden on my side of the gutter. I invest in my peers and those who got next as much as I can. And I make time to train and support those next inline. I put impact before profit as I continue to build and slowly but surely these repeated actions are taking me from my gutter to the world stage. 

Six months ago from my side of the gutter I amplified the conditions at our Covid-19 treatment centers in Sierra Leone. I worked with the community and we made medical deliveries across the country. No one paid me for that. It wasn’t my job. I just wanted to solve a problem for and with other Sierra Leoneans.

Today I’m the lead communications consultant for a $100 million initiative to deliver emergency PPE to one million community health workers across 20 countries in Africa. 

If you put impact first, if you put our community first, and you do the work in-spite of the fear, little by little light starts to break in to the sunken place and faith too and the trauma starts to fade. 

Salone noh fine but If you play your small part on your side of the gutter, and I do my part, before long we can turn our gutter into a garden, and what feels like a burden into a blessing.

Thank you.