African Food and Art

Thank you to our latest donor, Tony. Thank you, Tony. We were able to purchase three new stainless steel pots to continue our cooking and teaching heritage.

Julius Maada Wonie Bio President of Sierra Leone elected in April 4, 2018

Sierra Leone Country and Presidential Profile




Sierra Leone is recovering gradually from civil war (1991-2002) and disease.


Sierra Leone Country and Presidential Profile.



Julius Maada Wonie Bio President of Sierra Leone elected in April 4, 2018
Julius Maada Wonie Bio President of Sierra Leone elected in April 4, 2018
Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Wonie Bio is a Sierra Leonean born on May 12, 1964 in Tihun, a village in the Sogbini Chiefdom, Bonthe District, in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, Maada is one of 35 children born to a Mende Paramount Chief, Charlie Bio II, of Sogbini Chiefdom.

He was briefly the Head of State of Sierra Leone from January 16, 1996 to March 29, 1996. Bio is currently the President of Sierra Leone elected in April 4, 2018 winning just over 51% of votes.

Since then his governmental offices launched a free education program and is retooling its governance and financial and health‑care institutions. On health care, President Bio called on international partners to help invest in critical institutional, technical and human resources and to help improve the country’s preventative health infrastructure.

One of the world’s poorest nations despite huge mineral and diamond deposits, Sierra Leone is recovering gradually from civil war (1991-2002) and disease. Its economy remains fragile, with corruption widespread in the former British colony.


Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone

Before the Ebola outbreak, Sierra Leone was on track to overcome its troubled past. The countries Ebola epidemic threatened to stop the progress of Sierra Leone economic and social growth. The post-Ebola recovery period is proving challenging.

Bio was in a group of youthful soldiers behind a 1992 coup that would install their leader, Valentine Strasser, as the youngest head of state in the world, at age 25. He later took power but agreed to step aside in 1996 for an elected civilian leader, and his subsequent apologies for his role in the military installed government.

Sierra Leone name is from the Portuguese explorer Pedro de Sintra who named the country Serra Leoa or Lion Mountains for the impressive mountains he saw while navigating the West African coast in 1462.

Following the American Revolution, a colony was established in 1787 and Sierra Leone became a destination for resettling black loyalists who had originally been resettled in Nova Scotia.
After the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, British crews delivered thousands of Africans liberated from illegal slave ships to Sierra Leone, particularly Freetown.

Sierra Leone hope is to become a middle-income country, be an inclusive, green country, with 80% of the population above the poverty line, have gender equality, a well-educated, healthy population, good governance and rule of law, well-developed infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, with private-sector, export-led growth generating wide employment opportunities; there would be good environmental protection, and responsible natural resource exploitation.


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