Building Blocks Of Friendship

WESTCHASE - Jim and Kim Phillips can't forget Sierra Leone.

The African country is where they met and fell in love more than 27 years ago while serving as Peace Corps volunteers.

She taught health and nutrition at a secondary school. He rode around on a motorcycle from village to village working with farmers to improve rice cultivation.

Thrown into a foreign country with a different culture and language, they bonded with other volunteers and Sierra Leonean friends. Through the years, they have kept in touch, even having reunions.

The Phillipses, who live in Westchase with their 17-year-old daughter and 14-year-old son, are part of a nonprofit organization called the Sierra Leone Village Partnerships.

The organization seeks to rebuild a destroyed village schoolhouse in Mamaka and tackle other humanitarian projects in Sierra Leone.

In the 1990s, a civil war left the country in ruins.

"To me, it was really painful because there was really no logical reason behind that war," Jim Phillips said. "It was nothing but a naked power grab."

Joseph Albert Kamara met the Phillipses and other Peace Corps volunteers while living in Sierra Leone.

Although he came to the United States before the war, Kamara has since visited his home country and seen the devastation.

People abandoned their possessions for robbers to steal and their homes to be torched, said Kamara, who lives in California.

"If there was any resistance, if someone wanted to be brave, they would just kill you," he said.

Kamara, whose father was a tribal elder in Mamaka, remembers learning the alphabet in the little schoolhouse.

Kamara said he was told by villagers that the schoolhouse was used to store weapons, and there was an accidental explosion.

Only the center wall that divided the two classrooms remained. The village's current school accommodations are bamboo huts with old chalkboards.

Kamara urged his "Peace Corps family" to help him rebuild the school, and a grass-roots organization to help his country was born.

Last year, Kamara went back to Sierra Leone with $4,000 from former villagers living in the United States, former Peace Corps volunteers and some of his own money. A new foundation was built for the school.

"I gave them my word," Kamara said. "I'm going to come back."

The Sierra Leone Village Partnerships estimates the cost of rebuilding the school will be about $30,000. The organization received its tax-exempt status in March, but has been collecting donations since last year.

For her 50th birthday, Kim Phillips threw a party in November and requested donations for the school project. Her Westchase home was decorated like an African village, and Kamara was able to attend. The event raised almost $2,500.

Since then, more money has been raised and sent to Mamaka so the walls could go up, Jim Phillips said. A goal is to get the roof finished by May, he said.

Once the school is rebuilt, the nonprofit group will continue to focus on humanitarian projects, such as building more schools and helping to provide clean water and alternative sources of power.

"The list is pretty long because there is so much need," Jim Phillips said.

HOW TO HELP

To donate to the Sierra Leone Village Partnerships, send a check payable to SLVP and address it to Jim Phillips, Treasurer, 10040 Brompton Drive, Tampa FL 33626. For details, visit www.slvp.org.