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As per recent news, Richard has retired from St George Foundation after 22 years and we’re holding a thank you event.

Date: 27th June 2026
Time: 2pm – 5pm
Location: In the garden of James Sandfield at
Redlands,
Winters Road,
Shirrell Heath,
SO32 2JT (opposite the allotments)  

Anyone who knows Richard and would like to join us to formally thank him and say farewell, we are holding a BBQ and tea on the Saturday afternoon.

We would really like Richard’s friends to join us and please can you let me know if you would like to do so?    

philip.dean@stgeorgefoundation.org.uk or message me on: 0776 1056 342

That leaves just three of us that have done the whole 22 years: myself, Justina and Magnus Bendu (Magnus was a theology student when we started and is now Bishop Magnus and has been a volunteer and one of the trustees in Freetown all these years).

At Grafton we have started work on a new girls block. When we started (back in 2004) there were always about two boys to every girl needing help, so the accommodation was designed around that. Twenty years later that is hopelessly wrong and the girl’s accommodation is very overcrowded. We are preparing a new bedroom block that will double the space available for girls. So far the foundations are done and we hope to get a grant to do most of the work.

Grace and her expat ladies (in the UK) that did up the dining room had clearly done an amazing job and are now preparing the next project to upgrade the current girl’s rooms. Those are also in need of a makeover, so they are planning to put large windows into each of the three rooms just to make them brighter. On top of that a local family has very kindly offered to replace all the ceilings in the bedrooms as the ceiling panels are falling apart with age and need replacing. So in addition and before that we are just about to replace all the corrugated metal roof sheets as they are now 20 years old and starting to decay and leak and we plan to fix that issue before replacing the ceilings. Fairly soon the girls rooms will be much nicer!

We visited Staffi at his new home where he seemed very happy and accepted by his co-workers. He was the boy who has spent almost his entire life with St George and now approaching 18 he was accepted to train to make local cooking stoves out of recycled metal with clay liners. It was good to see him coping well.

We are about to have an adoption for a toddler to a Sierra Leonean American couple. The baby was orphaned soon after birth due to her mother’s Kush drug addiction and with a father unknown and no family to contact; she didn’t have a great outlook. The opportunity came up with local social services to suggest to a couple already seeking a child for adoption that they may want to consider this little girl. It is not a practice we really like to get involved in but for this particular child it is probably the best option she will ever get for a normal life and a real bond formed very quickly for the adoptive parents.

While showing the team around Freetown we passed the very first house that I rented as a children’s home (2004- 2007). I couldn’t resist knocking on the door and we got shown around by a charming chap that now had the place as a business office. It had hardly changed at all and it was a trip down memory lane to visit the place. That’s the building we had 68 children plus 15 volunteers living when we first took them off the streets.

To update you on a point raised in the last letter. St George have been campaigning for children in a more political way to protect them from abuse, trafficking and informal slavery. To recap, we have created a group with similar organisations (in Sierra Leone) to work together on this and approached local government ministers. In March, our Sierra Leone team were invited and have now done a presentation to the ECOWAS parliament. ECOWAS is the equivalent of the EU with 15 West African countries as members. The address was very well received and questions asked and most importantly the points we wished to raise have been done and everything we said was well accepted. It’s a step in the right direction and not a job done, but we were happy to get that opportunity and clear support.

And this is very random, but worth pointing out. I became aware of something recently, and that is that we look after these children for an absolutely amazing price. I compared our costs with the average cost of keeping a child in care in the UK (which starts at around £100,000 per child per year). We are doing the same job for 2% of that (or around £2,000 a year per child ….or 98% less). I match that figure with our incredibly small spend on administration and fund raising as a charity, which remains about 1% to 2% of the money we receive (a tenth of the UK charity average who also spend another 5% to 10% on actual fund raising costs). We really achieve this because everyone in the UK is a volunteer (even I have a full time job elsewhere), we don’t have an office and we avoid fund raising strategies that swallow too much in expenses.

Finally - I want to say a special thank you for all the financial support that we have received in the past year and those that give on a regular basis. But some has come in completely anonymously and even from overseas. We haven’t been able to say thank you always and so I would like to take this opportunity to say an enormous thank you for all the regular donations and the unexpected ones that we have received. Some of these donations have been amazing and we haven’t always been able to respond directly, so really a huge thank you!

Many thanks as always and best wishes

Philip

I’d like to start today by informing you of the retirement of Richard Green-Wilkinson as our accountant and chair of the trustees in the UK.

Richard has been on almost the entire St George journey and has played an absolutely critical role. His attention to the financial and legal side of affairs enabled Justina and me the freedom to focus on the actual mission of St George Foundation. From 68 homeless children in a house we rented and created a new family for them - to becoming the best choice for any child with no place to go and in desperate need in the Freetown area, Richard has been involved and he has helped over 2000 children be part of that St George family now.

Just a few months in (Autumn 2004), and before the charity even existed, I realised that the work was starting to expand and that keeping the finances steady was vital. I could see I wasn’t going to manage everything on my own. I knew Richard from church and I knew that he was an accountant. After a service one Sunday I asked him if he could help look after the money side of the project. Since then he took on a huge load of the process and competently dealt with HMRC, the Charity Commission, the accounts and most of the banking.

A source of wise counsel, we have worked pretty smoothly together and his grip on the finances has seen us through some real challenges over the years and he is directly responsible for making us live within our means and not overstretch. And with good humour too - I distinctly remember one time when we were in Sierra Leone together on a trip and there had been a spate of particularly nasty house invasions by a gang of thugs in the very near area (we really didn’t feel particularly safe)……..as I walked past Richards bedroom door one morning I noticed a sign with an arrow pointing towards my room and the words saying ‘’the other guy has got all the money’’!

And, slightly annoyingly, Richard still looks much as he did when we started (I can’t say the same).

I really can’t acknowledge Richard enough for his role for children who have actually lived with us and for the many many more children that we have worked with over the years outside of the actual children’s home……………AND for the many more children we expect to help in the future.

An absolutely huge THANK YOU Richard!

Philip

We had a very busy trip to Sierra Leone a month ago – a fact-finding trip with the team preparing to open our new skills training college. It is important to note that any funds received for the training college are given specifically for this purpose and are held as restricted funds. They are used solely to support the development and operation of the college and are entirely separate from donations made for the children.

On the trip were myself (Philip Dean), James Sandfield, Rob Hurley and John Booth.  James, Rob and John were first timers to Sierra Leone and James and Rob have since become new trustees on the strength of the trip.  It’s not all hard work and after a hot days work at approaching 40 degrees it’s really nice to chill out once in a while.  Here are John and James enjoying a beer in the evening coolness at a bar in town.

The children were great as always and the atmosphere happy and relaxed with the staff doing a super job as usual, and we took everyone for a day at the beach on the weekend.  On the last day as we said our farewells I asked the children if they thought living at St George Foundation was a happy thing?  To answer YES they should make a lot of noise and if NO to make no noise – the response almost caused burst eardrums!  So I came away feeling very happy as usual.

One of the villages has agreed to pilot a fish farm to study the results.  We also plan to put fish tanks in at St George Foundation itself and at the college site as well as James’ Sandfield’s back garden (in the UK), so we really hope to get some experience of the reality before we start teaching.  Catfish looks like being the best option to start with as they are a local fish in Sierra Leone, already eaten, easily farmed and Justina hopes to be cooking Louisiana catfish stew to the children by 2027.

While visiting the villages we were in a very rural area and I have to say it was sad to see slash and burn land clearance is thriving.  At times we could hardly breathe and in these photos you can see the point that we gave up on a trip to view another village.  We were concerned about fire drifting across the road and getting ourselves in trouble.

However on the same trip we were treated to a musical welcome that would have made anyone feel welcome and in the subsequent village meeting we witnessed our staff swap seamlessly and fluently into the local tribal language.

Plus being treated to THE MOST delicious fresh coconuts (James and Rob enjoying this treat - nothing like the ones we get here).

We also did a trip to a drugs den.  No photos of this as all the valuables were left in the car with the driver and we had to get escorted in by the locals.  We visited a market place where the locals can no longer ply their trades as the addicts have completely taken over and most of the market tables were each covered with 2 unconscious people and below the tables more unconscious people.  They are using a drug called Kush that is extremely potent and almost always fatal in the end.  It has caused huge health issues and security issues with the associated crime.  We are working there on a project with our partners Vibrant Villages to help the local population overcome some of the challenges caused by the drug dealers and their addicts.  

A great bit of news is courtesy of the ladies from the Sierra Leone Cultural Women Organisation (mostly expat Sierra Leonean ladies living in the UK). They approached us last year offering support, and over the past months have helped completely upgrade the dining room. It was pretty unexciting with very basic wooden shutters instead of windows and definitely a candidate for a makeover.

It now has bigger and much brighter windows, a lovely new marble effect tiled floor, the entire ceiling has been removed and opened up to the space above and the roof fixed, everything has been decorated with a fresh paint job, fun murals on the walls, new tables, benches and dinner plates have been provided.

The room was officially opened by them with a ceremony and a special lunch on the 28th February. The refreshed dining room has been dedicated to our dear friend and manager Augustine Baker and his wife Bundo, who both lost their lives in St George’s fight to help Ebola orphans. That was a real tragedy for their family and their own children who we still help their grandparents support. Augustine performed his incredibly brave work helping children during the Ebola crisis. Ebola cost him and his wife their lives and Augustine features in this BBC News footage.

The photos show the room as it now looks and the children tucking into a celebratory meal during the opening ceremony.

A huge thank you to Grace and her ladies for their support – the room is lovely!

Following the beds appeal, we have now purchased the bunk beds. We did a deal which included the mattresses and the beds and so we have enough beds now for 80 children and it worked out to £6,480 (£81 per child’s bed). We are currently working with about 50 children in residence at any one time (thanks to a big commercial supporter coming on board last year) but hoping to increase further to around 60 - 65 children at any one as soon as we can (funds allowing). We opted for 80 beds so we can accommodate surges and future growth – PLUS these do make good beds for guests so we can take small teams out and have them stay on site (we also have 4 guest rooms possible so about 8 to 10 guests comfortably).  I am genuinely thrilled with the new beds as they will be so much smarter than the current ones and the rooms will really look much better (complete with under bed storage). The challenge now is to get the beds from Cheshire to Freetown!

The beds actually came from a bed rental company and 16 had only ever been used as props in a film, so never slept in. The mattresses are in strong plastic covers which have been treated against uninvited creatures - so hopefully no more bed bugs!