Story of Mariama Bangura of Kolleh Town

My name is Mariama, I am 17 years old. I lived in Kolleh Town Community, Freetown, Sierra Leone with my mom and siblings since I was born. I love my family. My hobby is dancing. My dad abandoned us since I was a baby.

13 years ago, I lived inside the Bomeh with my family. Our source of living was picking trash in the Bomeh and sell for our livelihood. As a small girl, helping my mom and siblings to pick in the Bomeh, in 2013, Unforgotten picked me up from the Bomeh and enrolled me into the program. I start learning A,B,C and 1,2,3. Learning to read and write at the community Bridge School created by Unforgotten by then.

After few years in the Bridge School, Unforgotten enrolled me into a formal private school at Congo Town named Standard International Elementary School in Class 2. I took two years in the private school and later transferred to St. Thomas a Government Primary School at Ascension Town in Freetown. I did my class 4, 5 and 6 there. There I sat to my NPSE and passed. I was enrolled into a Dr. June Junior Secondary School from JSS1 to JSS3 where I sat to the Basic Education Certificate Exams (BECE) in. July, 2024.

Moreover, I was enrolled into the Government Secondary School in Kingtom at SSS1. I am presently in SSS2 in the Commercial Stream.

I thank Unforgotten for all the support that they have been given towards my education. They never let me down. I look forward to complete my high school and enroll into a university to become who I want to in the future.

Aid for Wastepickers

The Unforgotten provides direct humanitarian aid and emergency relief to wastepickers and other vulnerable, often overlooked populations worldwide, with zero overhead. These are long-term projects, and to this date, we are still one of the only charities in the world focused on these vulnerable women and children.

New project in Jaipur, India

Shanthi Women and The Unforgotten are collaborating on a project to educate child wastepickers in Jaipur, India. Join us!

New Learning Center, Zambia

Our Learning Center in Zambia is now operational! We have 40 children from the landfill in Lusaka getting prepped to enter the school system. These are in addition to the older children that are already in our program.

For more information, please visit our Zambia page.

The Unforgotten is committed to executing humanitarian relief projects at little to no overhead costs. Our charity is managed in the US by a very active volunteer Board of Directors. Our paid staff are forward-deployed to the field, or working completely on projects. We consistently receive donor support in campaigns like the CFC (Combined Federal Campaign) where donors seek out charities with the lowest overhead costs. Our charity overhead percentage of 0% is documented in our annual Form 990 filings, and we annually have our books externally audited by a CPA (who performs the service to us pro bono). We have received the 2017 “Gold Seal of Transparency” from Guidestar, and are certified as one of the “Best in America” from “America’s Best Charities”.

Aid for Child Wastepickers in Nepal

Thanks to your generous support, we are launching a new program in Kathmandu, Nepal for child wastepickers!

With this new project, The Unforgotten will partner with the Partnership for Sustainable Development (PSD) in Nepal to organize a series of programs aimed to address the needs of wastepickers in Kathmandu.

The aim of this partnership and the resulting program is to provide wastepickers, particularly children and their mothers, with sustainable skills that can help them achieve better standards of living through formal education, vocational, and practical work skills training.

This effort will be led by Shalini Puri and Shailaja (Sally) Brady. Feel free to reach out to them directly if you are interested in volunteering at shalini.puri@unforgotten.org and/or sally.brady@unforgotten.org

Milestone

Congrats to Christine! She is off to university to study medicine!

We started working in Zambia in 2011, with a cohort of grade schoolers. She was just a small child when we started. And thanks to all of you, we have our first student at university!

We install emergency drinking water supplies to provide refugees with access to safe drinking water. We drill boreholes, and install pumps to draw clean water from the ground. Safe drinking prevents water borne illnesses such as cholera and saves lives!

The Unforgotten partnered with Global One and RET International, up until 2023, to run a health clinic in Cox’s Bazaar for Rohingya Refugees. Only one in four babies is born in a health clinic in the camp.

The children and their mothers who look through trash for food to eat are highly malnourished. We provide meals and meal supplements to the children whom we support.

When refugees first arrive in camps, there is little time to plan either the location or construction of emergency shelters. Refugees build makeshift shelters from locally procured materials. The Unforgotten helps refugees fortify their shelters.

We enroll children in primary school, and free them of the burden of needing to earn money by selling items found in the trash. We provide extra tutoring in bridge programs.

We provide microloans to the mothers of trash-dump children to start businesses, so that the families do not become dependent on our aid. The mothers have successfully used these microloans for opening small stores and for making and selling jewelry and dresses.

Our Partners