The eleven years of civil war cracked the educational system of Sierra Leone, increasing the already national  problem of high illiteracy rate amongst women.

Shortly after the war ended, we felt the dire need to establish a Nursery and Primary School to serve children in the Thunder Hill community. The school was established in 2000 with 100 pupils and six teachers.

Sierra Leonean is traditionally very friendly especially to foreigners and they pride themselves on the peaceful state the country is now maintaining.

The local population is predominant Muslims although there are also a lot of Christians. In the rural areas many hold on to the traditional African practices too. English is the official language of Sierra Leone. Generally people in Sierra Leone understand English, however as you enter more rural areas, proficiency decreases, there are also local tongues, which vary according to area. Sierra Leone has 13 languages within its territory. In Freetown, the predominant local language is Krio. 

     Brief history of Rhema School

The called to start a Rhema Evangelistic Ministries was received by the General Overseer Rev Francis Hassan Kamara and his wife Mrs Mariatu Kamara when he was a student at the All Nation Bible College in Benin City, Nigeria 1997.

At the end of his course in 1999, he returned home in Freetown and shared with his wife this vision who also initiated the vision to start a nursery and primary school, to provide basic educational facilities for children up into responsible citizens.

The Rhema Church in collaboration with the Thunder Hill Community Kissy Mess Mess Freetown, instituted the Rhema Preparatory School with the ultimate aim objective by taking children affected by the war out of the streets and giving them affordable education in September 2000.

The school has two departments, the Nursery and Primary with a total enrolment of 250 with 13 staff including the helping staff.

The location of the school was previously a one story building, but it was burnt down during the last January 6, 1999 invasion of Freetown.

The ground floor has four rooms which is presently occupied by the Nursery department while the upper floor which completely burnt down has been rehabilitated with plastic sheets for the primary department also as temporal place for worship.

After two years in this mischief position this building now needs to be rebuilt into walls and corrugated iron sheets to provide a permanent place for a preparatory and primary school.

It is to salvage this spiritual and the literacy disaster that the Rhema Preparatory and Primary School is trying to fight down illiteracy by helping to educate more and more children that cannot afford to attend expensive preparatory schools.

The main aims of the school are to provide basic educational facilities to the children of the Upper Thunder Hill, Looking Town and Lower Thunder Hill Communities. To develop relevant attitudes, skills and values in children that will enable the individual to be an effective and responsible citizen in the future and to help develop destitute children.

     The Sierra Leonean educational system

The Sierra Leonean educational system is divided into three levels. The first level begin the elementary primary (this level includes nursery, and first to sixth classes), the Junior Secondary School from forms 1 to 3, and the Senior Secondary School also from forms 1 to 3.

There are three terms a year in the Sierra Leonean school system, namely: the first term runs from the second week of September and ends in the second weeks of December while the second terms runs from the second week in January and ends in the last week in March, while the third term runs from the third week in April and ends in the second week of July.

In Sierra Leone most schools running Private schools at Primary level have problem with buildings and usually used rented buildings. Rhema Preparatory School is one of those institutions that is on a rented building but have recently bought a plot of land and we are working on raising funds to put up a building of their own.