Chapter Six:

What does the future hold?

That question weighs on our minds and hearts. Very often we hear people say that the children of Sierra Leone are the hope and promise of our country. We believe that too. But we know that the problems we face are great. We have inherited the history of war, and those scars do not disappear all at once.

There is a bird that rises from the ashes and soars into the heavens. That is what we want to become. We want to rise up from the ashes of war. We want to become the rebirth of our country. It is a huge task, and we are only children. How can we build a bridge to the future? But, if not us, then who else can do it? It is our country. We are the children of Sierra Leone. The future is our challenge, and we cannot refuse. In order to succeed we must be idealistic and realistic at the same time. The ideal is our dream, our vision of the future. To build a bridge takes time. It takes hard work, real tools and building materials. We are determined to cross the bridge. We are already at work.

That is not all. We want our vision for Sierra Leone to go beyond the borders of our country. We are children and citizens of Sierra Leone, and we are also children and citizens of the world. We want to share our ideas with children in other countries, to tell our story and bring the hope and dream of peace to children everywhere.

National Vision for Sierra Leone
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is working to inspire the vision of a peaceful future in our country. The Commissioners gathered together the statements, submissions, hearings and thematic research, and recorded the advice of other experts. But when all this information was collected, something more was needed.

The Commission wanted the people of Sierra Leone to join together and create a vision of the future. And so they started a project called the ‘National Vision for Sierra Leone’. They requested essays, poems, paintings, drawings, songs and other creative activities that would express the hope of all citizens, including children, civil society groups, religious groups, professional and traditional associations, and others who wanted to contribute.

They invited the people of Sierra Leone to express their ideas, hopes and dreams. The people were asked to describe their visions for the future, to tell about the kind of society they wanted to create and how they could help make their country a better place. Children were also invited to contribute. The vision could be expressed in writing as a poem, song, story or slogan, or in artwork as a drawing, painting, sculpture or photograph.

Children in Freetown celebrating the Day of the African Child,
16 June 20003

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission received hundreds of ‘visions’ from people all over the country. After touring the country in an exhibition, the writings and artworks will travel around the world so that people in other countries will be inspired by the visions created in Sierra Leone. These visions will be collected and recorded in a book.The National Vision project carries the message of peace to people everywhere. It also draws attention to the creative voice of writers, poets, artists, musicians and photographers in Sierra Leone, including many children. Together we will help transform the memories of our past into a vision of the future.

School children upcountry, at play