Test Your Knowledge: How much does a year of tuition cost?

1. $75,000
2. $65,000
3. $35,000
4. $275

Answer: 4—Fourah Bay College (founded in 1827 as the first Western-style university in West Africa) is the oldest university college in West Africa. It is located atop Mount Aureol in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

This is Hannah. She wrote to me asking for help to pay for

school and I am glad to say I was able to do just that.

The goal of Ruff&Cut is to connect the consumer to the culture of our global citizens in Africa. For nearly a month, I spent time in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone working to establish a business. Everyday I started my day in the business center at the hotel where I was staying. Hannah was the manager of the business center. She is quite computer literate, very helpful and extremely nice.

A letter from Hannah:

February 8, 2006

Dear Sir,

Good morning. It is a pleasure to write you, Sir. I am a university student and the purpose of my writing, Sir, is to tell you I have been driven from college for fees. Sir, the past two weeks I have been trying to make things up but to no avail because of certain circumstances.

I am the first child to my father. I lost my mother when I was 8 years old. By then I was staying with my Aunty because my father is a farmer and he has no money to help educate me with. I went to school and stopped during the 5th level. I took my exams and later I went to an institution where I got a certificate in Business Studies. In 2002, I applied for a job at the Bintumaru Hotel and I was employed, and they paid me £80.00 per month and I accepted it because there was no other job.
If I acquire a diploma in accounting and finance I can get a better job than my present one and the salary will be a bit better.

Sir, I don’t have anybody to assist me except almighty God and you, as my salary scale is very low. Sir, this is my final year in college. Please Sir, help me, give me whatever little help you can, Sir.

Thank you very much for your assistance. May God almighty bless your children and your entire family.

Best Regards,

Hannah (business center)

After reading her letter, I gave Hannah the money to finish her education –$120 US dollars. Can you imagine that? Tuition at Fourah Bay University is approximately $250 per year. Sierra Leone has a medical school and tuition there is only slightly higher per year. What baffles me is that there is not an NGO focusing on raising money for qualified students in Africa.

Another letter from Hannah:

June 10, 2006

Dear Sir,

How are you and how is your family? I just wanted to know how you are doing over there. You know you were very kind to me, so it is not easy to lose communication with you, Sir. I will stop here for now. Say hello to Christina and the musician (she was referring to my son, Damon) and also to your wife.

Thank you very much for what you did for me by paying my school fees.

Best regard,

Hannah

P.S. Sir, these are my grades for the first semester:

1. English Language: B
2. Accounting: A
3. Numeracy and statistics: A
4. Economics: C
5. Business Management and Administration: B

Hannah graduated June 28, 2006 with a Bachelors degree in Accounting and Business Administration. Helping people like Hannah is what has been the fuel for the engine of Ruff&Cut. Behind every piece of jewelry purchased from Ruff&Cut, is someone getting a helping hand.

Wade's Word Blog

Elle Magazine December Issue-My Travelogue

Last May, I traveled to Sierra Leone with a team of fashion elite that included Elle magazine fashion news editor Alexa Brazilian, Supermodel Selita Ebanks, and Photographer Phyllis Galembo (http://www.galembo.com/). They came to Sierra Leone to learn about this beautiful gem of a country and cover the launch of Ruff&Cut's brand of jewelry. Inspired as I am by each visit to Sierra Leone, I am starting this blog with the hopes you will visit our web site often to learn about our social venture work.

The crew was able to get a real feel for the country, over the course of the ten day trip. We visited the orphans and street children who have found a home and a future at St. George's Orphanage (http://www.adecentlife.org/).

The jump rope (one of many gifts the group brought) was a hit!

Selita poses with a few of the St. George boys

Happy boys at St. George’s

We celebrated with school children in a village where our NGO partner Shine one Sierra Leone (http://www.shineonsierraleone.org/) has built a wonderful school.

These young student performers (dancers in front and drummers behind) met our car on the road to Muddy Lotus. Together we paraded up to the school where we were treated to a variety of performances. Muddy Lotus was just a one room dilapidated school building with a leaky roof before Shine on Sierra Leone facilitated the building of two additional school buildings.

Selita and a few of the young students from Muddy Lotus Primary School.

Happy Students.

We traveled through the lush green countryside to the provinces and visited Kono the heart of the mining district.

This photo typifies the lush tropical flavor of the interior along the road from the capital Freetown to Kono

The road to Kono is dotted with roadside market places – the markets are full of a variety of mostly imported goods: you can find everything from jeans and plastic buckets to diesel fuel and the supplies any enterprising individual needs to start hand digging for diamonds.

Selita enjoys a rest during our day of travel from Kono back to Freetown.

The mining region exemplifies the stark contrast and complexities of Sierra Leone; while 9 million carats of diamonds have been exported from the region, nowhere in the region is on the power grid.

Kim enjoys a quick game of pick-up soccer with a group of children in Kono – this photo shows typical roads and construction style in the region that has exported over 9 million carats in diamonds.

We, of course, took a day to enjoy the most exquisite white sand beaches. We had the stretches of white sand all to ourselves and enjoyed a delicious meal of fresh caught lobster, oysters, and a variety of local fish.

Just a small portion of the stretches of Atlantic coast-line we had all to ourselves.

While we had the beach to ourselves for most of the day – we did inspire the curiosity of some neighboring kids.

The sun setting over the Atlantic calling an end to our day at the beach

And, as no trip to Sierra Leone is complete with out a trip to Paddy’s, we enjoyed an evening of dancing and celebration at the renowned night club.

Alexa, Johnny, one of the founders of St. George’s Orphanage and Kim celebrate at Paddy’s

To give you a bit of background - I first came to Sierra Leone in 2005 with the idea of developing a socially responsible diamond mine, a mine that could be a driver for development reversing the 'resource curse'. Over the last four years, I have made several trips to Salone (as some affectionately call it), and the country has become my work, my obsession and my life's passion in the category of 'I can make a difference'.

Billboard depicting celebrating the strengths of sweet ‘Salone’

While rich in natural resources and tremendous ecological beauty, Sierra Leone is one of the countries classified by the UN as one of the least developed countries in the world (http://www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/ldc/ldc%20criteria.htm).

The Statistics are overwhelming: Sierra Leone has the lowest life expectancy (39 for Male and 42 for Female) and the highest infant mortality rate (18%) and is dead last of 177/177 countries on almost every statistical category.(CIA & United Nations Web-sites).

Yet with the abundance of natural resources and fertile soil, the country is poised for a positive future. Most importantly - the people are wonderful, generous, warm, friendly and hard working.


Ruff&Cut is a continuation of that vision an attempt to bring that passion for business driven social change to you. I hope to empower you to be able to make consumer choices that will have a positive impact on our world. Ruff&Cut is jewelry company setting out to be an answer to consumerism: by connecting you, the customer, to the villages where your stones come from. "Answer to consumerism" is our business model of transparency – where you can learn about the companies involved in mining your diamonds, cutting and faceting your stones, hand crafting your jewelry. In addition on our website, you can follow the impact of our reinvestments: 10% of the price of each piece of jewelry will go to our NGO partners involved in supporting development in the communities where your stones are sourced through development projects such as: building and running schools and medical centers, providing micro-loans, and giving love and supporting orphans and street children in Africa.

Keep coming back to our site. Tell your friends. Contact us. Let our jewelry tell your story. Join us and become part of a new way of doing business where commerce works for the poorest people in Africa. We believe with your purchase Ruff&Cut can be part of the solution. Join us to make the world a better place.

Warmest regards,

Wade Watson