Our founder and CEO, Mr. Bpaaki Michael Vandi, is a community activist and an immigrant from Sierra Leone. He has always had the passion for getting involved and helping improve the welfare of others. His work with nonprofits started in 2011. Mr. Vandi has led fundraising campaigns for Charity: Water, the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa and the 2017 mudslide in Sierra Leone.

 

After returning from Sierra Leone in January 2014, he decided to start SINAVA, which means “For Tomorrow," in Mende, which is his native tribe. The event that catapulted the idea for this organization was the Ebola outbreak of 2014. Many Sierra Leoneans, including Mr. Vandi, lost family members to the disease.

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 3,956 Sierra Leoneans were killed by this epidemic. The outbreak also claimed the lives of 11 doctors nationally and 58 nurses and caregivers, in the district of Kenema alone. Ebola also had devastating effects on children, leaving over 12,000 orphaned, based on a survey done by Street Child, a UK-based nonprofit. In addition to causing economic and social disruption in Sierra Leone, the education sector also fell prey to Ebola, causing 1.8 million children to be out of school and leaving thousands more working in a quarry to feed themselves.

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In essence, Sinava, Inc., was formed in an effort to provide aid and help prevent such outbreaks in the future, as well as promote the importance of education.  Sinava hopes to give students and their families another chance at furthering their education and living healthy lives. Without the burden of struggling to secure school supplies or worrying about finding access to basic healthcare, our beneficiaries can retake control of their lives. We hope you can join us in this quest by giving what you can, volunteering, donating school and medical supplies, and help us become the beacon of hope for these wonderful students and their families.