Skip to content

What are you looking for?

News

Turley charity trip to Sierra Leone

At the end of January, 10 Turley co-owners travelled to Sierra Leone in West Africa for the 7th overseas trip organised by the company’s Charitable Trust.

Sierra Leone

The Trust has made a short film of the trip, click here to watch it.

Turley team in Sierra Leone

Led by Trust Chair, Bob May, the team worked with longstanding charity partner Mission Direct and a local charity Tebbs Second Chances to refurbish a community school in Regent, a hillside suburb of the capital Freetown, where a devastating mudslide in August 2017 killed over 1,000 people and destroyed 300 homes.

The community school was threatened with closure due to its poor condition and limited facilities but, with around £12,000 raised in donations, the Turley team was able to give new hope to the 200+ children at the school, making substantial progress on the rebuild over the course of four days.

Turley's Bob May

The team also visited other charities in the Western Peninsula to distribute aid collected before the trip, including Waterloo Hospital where a previous team had extended the maternity wing and the Polio Association in Freetown.

Another highlight was teaching scale drawing to a group of students at the Vocational Training Centre at Lifeline Nehemiah School. The session was prepared and delivered by Neil Woodhouse, an Associate Director in the Design team, who had helped to build the centre on his previous visit in 2013.

Vocational Training Centre at Lifeline Nehemiah School

The final part of the week was spent at Destiny Village, a new settlement where 300 homes are planned to relocate slum dwellers from Cobolt Slum in Freetown, which the team also visited. Turley Design has helped to masterplan the site for the charity Home Leone, and the team spent two days working on building the new school, erecting tents for the first residents who will move in shortly to build their own homes, and laying out the next phase of the site.

Turley team in Sierra Leone

Turley's Mike Best

Find our more about the charities below:

Mission Direct

Tebbs Second Chances

Home Leone website

Thanks to our sponsors: IM Land, No.5 Chambers and First Panattoni, and to Hobs Repro for the team t-shirts.

No5 Chambers logo

IM Land logo

First Panattoni logo

2 March 2018