So Worried abut Stefan

Today I admit to being terrified for several reasons. Stefan is much better and out of hospital. Indeed, she managed to make it to church this morning (she is deeply religious, though I am not). All of this means that she will now be on the road to recovery and when fully recovered she will want to travel down to Sierra Leone.

Unfortunately she needs to do this journey for two reasons. First of these is to visit her father and I am so sad to have to tell her that my Help Stefan Campaign has been almost a complete bust. Despite plastering the campaign all over my site and having almost 900 visitors a day only two people have made any donations. This is terrible. I spend thousands of hours a week making all the information on my site available free to everyone, but when I ask, plitely, for $1 to help someone else (not even me) the world turns a blind eye. Ah well.

The second reason for Stefan's trip to Sierra Leone is that she needs a passport before she can put in an application for a visit to come to the UK. She had already done this by courier but the passport office in Sierra Leone have been holding her passport to ransom for the past 4 months, requesting that she pay an additional $300 for 'legal documents' before she could get a passport. The only way for Stefan to gain a passport therefore is to get to Freetown and make an application in person.

Even worse I cannot afford the airfare for her. Tomorrow I will have to pay her rent and utiliteis bills (almost $1000 which I pay every month); I have already paid for the hospital treatment due to her malaria ($3500 and I had to really persuade her to go into hospital) so my debts are mounting and I have no money left over to live myself, but that's OK, Stefan is the most important thing in my life).

But this means that Stefan will have to leave her son behind and travel overland to reach Seirra Leone (and travel overland back). She cannot drive so she will be at the mercy of a driver and the dangers of travelling throug Senegal, Guinea and Sierra Leone none of which are exactly for a single woman travelling alone. Which explains why I am terrified and why I am disappointed by the lack of response to my campaign. I am so desperate to be there with this woman, to protect her and to look after her. Her survival is my future and if anything were to happen to her then I could not live with myself. But without your help I cannot do anything and the time is so short now.

I've even been busy creating press releases but none of which have created any additional income for the site and the campaign. I am so afraid that something will happen to this woman I love.

I must give her whatever I have to make her trip safer but this means that what little money I have for myself is dwindling. I will not be able to call her as often as I do, I may not even be able to visit her for Christmas and so, the wedding we had planned as the start of our lives together may not occur in December, if at all. But I do still have the money for her visa application and that's OK.

Now, though, she has to make a dangerous trip through West Africa entirely alone and she will be going to visit her family for the last time, rather than going to see him gain an operation that could save his life. Everything is going so, so wrong for us.

Please visit Help Stefan Campaign.

Remember, if you are a webmaster then your donation will get you a permanent link on the One Dollar Links page. Larger donations will get you a copy of my Poetry eBook or my Cooking with Spices eBook. Soon I will follow this with a book of African Recipes and a 'Cooking with Herbs' eBook.


Just remember that Stefan and her son, Zogo, have survived two civil wars, a journey on foot through some of the roughest parts of West Africa. Both are surviving with malaria and living in Dakar, Senegal they are effectively stateless and have no political or economic rights whatsoever. Indeed, they are not legally allowed to work or earn money in Senegal and like all the other Liberian/Sierra Leonian refugees there they are living a hand-to-mouth existence. This is why I am supporting them every month with money for rent, utiliteis and food but I cannot do much more than that. They now have a chance to re-build a shattered family, to re-unite themselves with a father who they thought was lost (remember almost all of Stefan's family was massacred and she, herself, has been brutally attacked, injured and abused on several occasions). She is a true survivor and would never make this appeal on behalf of herself. But I have the chance, through this campaign, to make her life whole again, to allow her to finally let go of the past and to make a life with someone who truly loves her.

But I cannot do that withoug your assistance. Please support the Help Stefan Campaign and and make a real difference to two refugees' lives. Remember, the refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone are the 'forgotten refugees' or Africa. All moneys beyond that which is necessary to help Stefan herself will go towards the other Liberian/Sierra Leonian refugees in Senegal. Their plight needs to be brought to the world's attention lest they be forgotten forever.

It's not even that Stefan is doing this for nothing. She is dictating recipes to me for the African Recipes section of my Celtnet Recipes site. Please support the Help Stefan Campaign and give something back to a woman who is willing to give to you everything she knows.

Only you can turn her/our lives around, please help Stefan and her little boy Zogo (only 5) gain a new life in the UK. Support the Help Stefan Campaign now.