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Like Oprah, Mr. Jones dreamt of starting and outfitting a school in his native Sierra Leone. A national track star who won a gold medal for his country, Mr. Jones thinks sports could be the sweetener to get kids to stay in school. Then, after getting a good basic education, they could enter the field of their choice, whether business, the trades or professional sports.
But whereas the talk show mogul was able to open and outfit an academy for girls outside Johannesburg, South Africa three years ago, Mr. Jones is not quite there yet.
He’s come a long way though. Last week, a container in a Burnside warehouse was packed with computers, sports equipment, shoes, clothing and bedding. With help of high school students at Dalhousie for the Shad Valley program, loading the container was fast work. Mr. Jones was finally able to empty out his apartment where boxes of donated goods were stacked up to the ceiling.
The container was shipped out to Sierra Leone on Sunday and is expected to arrive in Freetown in mid-August. The Dal student hopes to be there when it arrives so he can smooth out any red tape and deliver the contents to the schools.
“Maybe it was a little easier for Oprah,” he concedes with a smile. He's been working on the School in a Box idea since 2005. “For me, it seems to have taken longer.”
The equipment will go to outfit two schools: one a rural school where Dal alum Rugi Jalloh has a connection; the other, Lawab-Boyd Elementary School in Freetown.
Schools are in desperate need in the west African country; more than a thousand primary schools were destroyed during the 11-year civil war which officially ended in 2002. A generation has grown up never having been inside a classroom. Kids were recruited as child soldiers, separated from their families and brutalized by all sides.
“But the thing is, everyone in Sierra Leone loves sports. Even when they had no money to eat, they would find something to go watch a cricket match or a track and field match,” explains Mr. Jones, now in the fourth-year of a double degree, the Bachelor of Recreation/Bachelor of Management program. “That’s why sports may be the answer. They’ll come to school attracted by the sports and we’ll give them an education at the same time.”
“When I was in management class learning about the bait-and-switch technique, it was familiar to me. That was my idea, exactly.”
Mr. Jones moved to Canada with his family, his mother, father, two brothers and son Victor, age 13. He completed Dalhousie’s Transition Year Program before enrolling in the double degree. With a year to go, he’s looking to do a MBA or a MPA, with aspirations of working for the United Nations.
With the assistance of Professor Ed Leach and others, Mr. Jones is hoping to reach out to the corporate community and keep School in a Box going.
“If this goes well, we have the potential to do a whole lot more,” says Dr. Leach, director of Dalhousie’s Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship. “The key is matching up what goes into the container with what the needs are at the other end.”
READ: 'School in a box' bound for Sierra Leone in Metro