By Sarah Chu, Cecelia Ong, and Sean Tan
Translated by Wu Hsiao-ting
Photos by Hsiao Yiu-hwa
What began as aid in response to an Ebola outbreak has evolved into a path toward self-reliance for communities in Sierra Leone.
Holding stalks of rice, women participating in an agricultural project in Faabu, Bo District, welcome Tzu Chi volunteers. They wear shirts printed with “Steps for the Earth,” sent along with children’s shoes donated by Tzu Chi USA.
The road to Koindu was no easy journey; the ride rattled and jolted like an off-road race, dust swirling outside while we bounced helplessly over every pothole. Yet, the discomfort faded away the moment we arrived. A group of children was already waiting, their voices ringing out in a cheerful welcome song. Their greeting made every bump along the way feel worth it.
The town had once been one of the hardest-hit areas during the West African Ebola outbreak. It’s also where Tzu Chi’s work in Sierra Leone began, now spanning 11 years. What started as food distributions has grown into agricultural support, disaster-risk reduction work in the slums, and much more. Along this path lie more than footprints of compassion; the way is also marked by stories of people finding their smiles again after trauma.
Koindu, once hit hard by the Ebola epidemic, is still on the path to recovery. On January 27, children from Smile With Us Primary School carry bags of Tzu Chi-donated rice on their heads to a local gathering place.
Rising from devastation
On January 19, 2026, Debra Boudreaux (曾慈慧), chief international affairs officer of the Tzu Chi Foundation, led a team from Taiwan on a charitable mission to two African nations, including Sierra Leone. The eight-member delegation included staff from Tzu Chi’s Hualien headquarters, Da Ai TV, and Tzu Chi Monthly, as well as Tzu Chi volunteer Cecelia Ong (王慈惟), from Malaysia.
Koindu, one of the team’s destinations in Sierra Leone, is a small town in the east, nestled amid low rolling hills and river floodplains near the borders with Guinea and Liberia. Once a thriving trade hub, its fertile land and deep-rooted history made it a vital economic and social center for the eastern region.
Everything changed with the 2014 Ebola outbreak, which claimed more than 4,000 lives in Sierra Leone alone. Koindu was among the worst affected. A decade on, survivors still face lasting physical and psychological effects, as well as social stigma. Since 2015, Tzu Chi has made this community a key focus of its aid efforts, walking the long road to recovery alongside its people.
Smile With Us Primary School in Koindu was founded in the wake of the outbreak to care for children orphaned by Ebola. Opening with 40 students, it has grown to 480. The school’s children greeted our arrival with warmth and energy, as older students hoisted bags of Tzu Chi-donated rice we were delivering onto their heads, making trip after trip to a local gathering place.
The town chief noted that Koindu was not only where the outbreak began in Sierra Leone, but also one of the places it struck most deeply. “Without Tzu Chi’s support,” he said, “we might have long ago lost hope after the passing of so many loved ones.”
The school’s teachers shared similar sentiments, remarking that while most international organizations had long since withdrawn, Tzu Chi had remained. A student representative put it simply: “When the epidemic struck, people died like flies. It was Tzu Chi’s help during that most difficult time that made us who we are today.”
After school, some students lingered on campus, where a small stall had been set up along a bench. One girl, both a student and a young vendor, worked with practiced ease at the stall, ladling spicy sauce over quinoa. Each serving sold for two leones (US$0.087). Nearby, three siblings happily shared the food they had ordered.
Tzu Chi team members Cecelia Ong and Sean Tan (陳思擔), charmed by the children still on campus, took out 20 leones to buy candy and fried snacks to share. When they paid the young vendor, playfully addressing her as “Manager,” her eyes lit up. Accustomed to earning just one or two leones at a time, she suddenly found herself receiving what felt like a windfall.
The children, despite their eagerness, neither pushed nor grabbed as the snacks were handed out. They stepped forward one by one, accepted their treats, and shared them with their schoolmates. That sense of self-discipline reflected the success of the school’s education.
The following day, we traveled to Lungi and Makeni to visit survivor communities. Even though we took what was described as a shortcut, the journey—estimated at three and a half hours—stretched to five due to rough road conditions.
According to representatives of the Sierra Leone Association of Ebola Survivors, this was the first time since the association’s founding in 2015 that an organization had proposed a long-term plan to help survivors become self-reliant. Around 450 survivors live locally. For years, they had hoped to become self-sufficient but lacked the tools and knowledge to do so. The representatives expressed hope that Tzu Chi’s agricultural program would include training and seeds, beginning with a 150-acre pilot project.
We then traveled another three hours to Port Loko, where 2,000 acres of wetlands are ideal for growing rice and vegetables. The fields looked especially beautiful in the light of the setting sun. Several chiefs noted that this was the first time foreigners had visited their region. In addition to expressing their willingness to participate in Tzu Chi’s agricultural program, they offered prayers for our safe return.
Local residents presented us with three baskets of fruit, and a chief made a point of mentioning that bottled water had also been prepared. At one point, a young girl scooped a cup of water from a bucket and shared it with an even younger child, then quietly set the cup back. Only then did we realize that bottled water was not part of daily life here—it was, like serving tea to guests in Taiwan, a gesture of respect and hospitality.
Along the shores of Susan’s Bay in Freetown, residents discard vast amounts of trash, food waste, and secondhand clothing, mixed with lime and sand. Constantly trampled over time, this mixture forms “land” on which houses are built to accommodate a growing population.
Disaster-reduction efforts
Tzu Chi began providing aid to Ebola survivor communities 11 years ago. In the years since, it has partnered with Caritas Freetown, the Healey International Relief Foundation, and the Lanyi Foundation to broaden its humanitarian work in the country.
Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, sits at the opposite end of the country from Koindu, some 460 kilometers (285 miles) away. With our partners, we spent two days visiting three of Freetown’s largest slum communities: Susan’s Bay, Kroo Bay, and Dwarzark.
The distance from our hotel to Susan’s Bay was just 11 kilometers, but the final stretch was nearly impassable, with our vehicles trapped in the crowds of a traditional market. Only when passersby recognized the Caritas logo on our vehicles and called out to the vendors blocking the road, prompting them to lift their baskets and step aside, were we able to pass through.
When we arrived at Susan’s Bay, the first thing that caught our eye was the football field, cleared by residents with encouragement from Tzu Chi. It was still well maintained, with children kicking a ball around and laughing. It was heartening to see that spirit of self-improvement endure.
The community is built along the coast at the downstream end of a river. Residents, lacking proper sanitation awareness, had long dumped human waste and large amounts of garbage directly into the water, causing floods during the rainy season that sometimes resulted in casualties. To address this, Tzu Chi and its partners have provided emergency disaster relief, implemented flood mitigation measures, and begun installing proper toilet facilities. Walking along alleyways, we saw these efforts up close: trash cans installed under Tzu Chi’s small-grant disaster prevention program, emptied each day by members of the Community Disaster Management Committee.
Susan’s Bay is home to more than 20,000 residents, many of whom still dispose of human waste along riverbanks or into drainage ditches. Once completed, Tzu Chi’s toilet project will be equipped with biodigesters, allowing waste to be broken down by microorganisms prior to discharge, significantly reducing contamination.
The following day we visited Kroo Bay, where the community chairman told us that flooding had struck almost every year for 17 years. Since Tzu Chi launched its flood prevention program, however, no floods have been reported in the past two years.
Toward agricultural self-reliance
Over the past 11 years, Tzu Chi has provided food aid to Ebola survivor communities, vulnerable families, and those affected by floods and fires, as well as to shelters and clinics. Yet the need remains immense. According to 2024 data from the World Food Programme, more than 7.2 million of Sierra Leone’s roughly nine million people face hunger or lack access to sufficient and diverse food. The country also relies heavily on imports, with its agricultural sector falling far short of meeting demand. The country’s farms are hampered by inadequate irrigation, outdated farming methods, poor roads, and recurring floods and droughts.
That a substantial portion of Sierra Leone’s population lives with food insecurity weighs heavily on Dharma Master Cheng Yen. She has said that no one can guarantee that food aid from outside will last forever, so the real goal is to help people provide for themselves. This conviction has guided Tzu Chi’s work on the ground over the past two years: Alongside the slum sanitation efforts, agricultural development has become the foundation’s second-largest charitable program in the country.
During this trip to Sierra Leone, we visited a women’s agricultural project in Faabu, near the city of Bo, implemented by the Lanyi Foundation with Tzu Chi’s funding. We also met with another partner in Jendema, Pujehun District: TWIN Salone, whose pilot farming sites are along the Moa River in Juring and Lathu. For both projects, Tzu Chi purchases 70 percent of the rice harvest to support those in need locally, while the remaining 30 percent is sold by the farmers through their own channels.
The women participating in the agricultural project in Faabu led us to the rice paddies. Their singing accompanied us along the 1.5-kilometer (0.9-mile) route. Someone softly explained the lyrics for us: “Our foreign friends see us laboring in the marshes. They understand how hard we work, and they cheer us on.”
The fields had been harvested the previous December, and only scattered stubble remained. Even so, standing there, we could still sense the abundance they once yielded. When conversation turned to the year ahead, the women’s eyes shone. They spoke of the farming cycle: clearing the land in February, nursing seedlings through March and April, transplanting in June, and finally bringing in the harvest in September and October. We also talked with the village chief about the possibility of growing a second crop during the dry season, and shared the idea of dividing harvest earnings among four purposes—family needs, education, community, and emergencies—hoping that each grain of rice might sustain more than one aspect of life.
Back in the village, we were shown the harvest storage area. Inside the warehouse, sacks of unhusked rice were piled high, each one a testament to the women’s months of stooped labor under the sun. The bags were marked with the name Tzu Chi—the women had saved and reused the bags from Tzu Chi’s own rice donations. It was a powerful symbol: Those who had once relied on aid had, through their own effort and the project’s support, begun to stand on their own.
The rice harvest in Juring is ten times that of Faabu, thanks to the fertile soil along the riverbanks. Rufus Tamba, co-founder of TWIN Salone, captured the land’s fertility with a touch of humor: “Don’t stick your finger into the soil. If you fall asleep in the field, it might just sprout!”
In Lathu, a 33-year-old woman named Massa has worked hard to raise her four children after losing her husband, yet still faces significant financial strain. She weaves hats from vines in cassava fields and sells them for two leones each, saving up the 150 leones (US$6.5) needed each year for school fees. She is deeply grateful for Tzu Chi’s agricultural program: During the cultivation period, she received an allowance, and after the harvest, had gained both income and food.
The Lanyi Foundation and Tzu Chi are working together to boost food self-sufficiency in Sierra Leone. Volunteers and participants pose with a project sign reading “Empowering Women in Agriculture.”
Sewing program
Many women do not know their exact age in the remote villages we visited during our trip. Their years are marked not by birthdays, but by the cries of children, the smoke of cooking fires, and the sweat shed in the fields. Young women cradling younger children offer a glimpse of how common early marriage is.
Tzu Chi’s sewing program for women with disabilities and those from vulnerable backgrounds, jointly run with the Lanyi Foundation, is now in its second cohort, which began training last September. Regina Lahai, a first-cohort graduate who now serves as both instructor and coordinator, explained that graduates can rent a set of startup equipment and supplies, including a sewing machine, tools, and materials, for 80 leones (US$3.48) a month, enabling them to continue practicing their skills and earning an income. After a year, the machine is theirs to keep.
Mary Baby Alie, a disabled participant, had once survived by begging. Through the program, she has gained a skill and is now able to support herself and her family. When Cecilia Ong, who is good at sewing, suggested that students make use of leftover fabric to create additional products, Mary said with pride that she had made a bedsheet from scraps, and that every time she looks at it, she feels a great sense of achievement.
Ong also showed the instructors how to make simple, three-dimensional fabric butterflies, which can be attached to headpieces or sewn onto clothing as decoration, adding both aesthetic appeal and value. One teacher brought out an object that many on the Tzu Chi team found fascinating: a charcoal iron. She opened the lid, placed glowing coals inside, and pressed the fabric smooth, bringing the butterflies vividly to life.
On February 1, we left Sierra Leone and flew east to Kenya to continue our journey. Looking back on all we had seen, whether in the slums, in the sewing class, or out in the fields, those taking part in Tzu Chi’s programs are working to improve their communities and their own lives. It’s our sincerest hope that they will soon overcome their challenges and, like the butterflies they create with their own hands, spread their wings and take flight.
In Bo, Tzu Chi and the Lanyi Foundation partner to offer a sewing program for women with disabilities and from vulnerable backgrounds. Finished products, handmade by the students, hang across the wall in the background.
