As you may know in 2008, St George Foundation moved to the Centre at Grafton, just outside Freetown. The land and buildings have never been our property and we worked in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Scouts although the site belongs to the Sierra Leone government.  At the time we agreed to renovate the buildings so that we might then have occupation for 10 years at a peppercorn rent.

When this term ended, we agreed rental payments of about £7,000 per year.

However, we have an amazing opportunity arise recently to gain the freehold of the site for a fraction of its commercial rate.  We feel this is an opportunity to give St George a stable footing for the future.  The Sierra Leone government recognise the value of our work and the efforts we have made to develop and use the site in a responsible manner for the good of the community.  As a result, they have offered to transfer the freehold to us subject to us continuing that work and effectively for the cost only of the surveys and other associated legal costs.   We therefore need to raise about £15,000 in order secure the site as opposed to raising about £150,000 to purchase a similar site on the open market.

We will be applying to several charitable trusts in order to raise the funds, but this is not an easy time to access funding.

With existing funds and one or two pledges, we should have about £4,000 towards this.

If you are able to contribute towards this most important investment, it would be very much appreciated. You can contribute via the website or Justgiving, or send cheques made payable to St George Foundation to us, care of Drovers, Chapel Road, Swanmore, Southampton SO32 2QB