Thanks again, KoS

A TOP British diplomat has praised Kent on Sunday’s campaign to help the children of Sierra Leone.
The war-torn country has virtually no infrastructure, meaning most children do not get a good education.
So this year KoS readers donated a tonne of books to the village of Kent, a former slavetrading post in the West African nation.
In July, KoS organised the opening concert in the Sierra Leone blind school choir’s UK tour at Canterbury Cathedral. Overall the tour raised more than £20,000 for the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Freetown.
This week, the British High Commissioner to Sierra Leone, Sarah MacIntosh, issued a statement to KoS. Miss MacIntosh said: “It has been wonderful
to see the growth of community links between the UK and Sierra Leone this year.
“Two successes stand out for me. The recent UK tour of the Milton Margai School for the Blind choir has been an exceptional experience for the children who took part and a joy for those who heard them.
“I have also been delighted to follow the success of Kent on Sunday’s campaign to provide teaching materials for schools in the Kent village
in Sierra Leone.
“Having visited Kent on several occasions I know that your readers’ support has been warmly received.”
Miss MacIntosh is the senior representative of the British Government in Sierra Leone, a former crown colony.
KoS readers’ books were also donated to an orphanage called The End-Time Children’s Bible School.
The school recently presented KoS with a framed certificate for “rendering services and promoting the welfare, spiritual, physical and mental status to the children of Sierra Leone”.
A spokesman for the school said: “We the children of End-Time Bible School once more express our sincere gratitude to your institution for providing books for the children of Sierra Leone.
“Empowering children means making a world with a lot of difference. We appreciate and we would continue to remember you in our everyday prayers.”
Of the money raised by the blind school choir, £3,000 has already been spent to repair a badly leaking roof at the school.
A further £1,000 was donated each to the Bo Blind School and the Balanta Music Academy.
And £1,000 was also donated to development projects in the Sierra Leone village of Hastings from the tour’s concert in Hastings, Sussex.
Late this summer, successful government elections took place in Sierra Leone, in which the opposition party won power.
The international community regarded the elections as being free and fair, something of a triumph after more than a decade of brutal and bloody rebel war which was one of the worst in the continent’s history.
Tony Blair and John Prescott also backed our campaign.