Michael has found a wonderful way to pay tribute to his wife, Susan, and help transform the lives of children in Sierra Leone.
Determined, intelligent, thoughtful, and modest. Family-orientated. A deep thinker, but also a doer. An amazing host, who brought people together through a book club and other social events. This is the loving picture Michael paints of his wife of close to four decades, Susan.
Michael lost his first wife to cancer in 1982. Susan and he met three years later, in 1985 after being introduced to each other by a mutual friend who had volunteered and worked in Ghana with Michael in 1965.
‘Adventurous’ isn’t one of the words Michael uses to describe himself. Yet, long before the internet and with little opportunity to keep in contact with home, he travelled to Ghana to teach English and African History as a VSO volunteer. He remembers the warm, welcoming people, the spicy food, and even witnessing a military coup!
Susan was also a VSO volunteer, teaching English in Sierra Leone from 1968 to 1969. Michael says that she kept in touch with many of the girls at the secondary school where she taught for years afterwards.
After volunteering, Michael and Susan built successful careers back home in their chosen fields. Michael specialised in Law, while Susan continued teaching, later becoming a headteacher. In retirement, Susan studied for an MA and PhD in local history.
When Susan died in 2022, Michael wanted to pay tribute to a loyal, loving wife and mother, his best
friend, and ‘a marriage made in heaven.” For Susan, education was far more than a personal passion. She dedicated much of her life to teaching, passing on her love of learning to a generation of students. So, Michael decided to make a donation to VSO in Susan’s memory that will touch many lives.
VSO Sierra Leone teamWe, the VSO Sierra Leone team, are deeply grateful for Michael’s generous gift in memory of Susan, which will have a lasting impact on the lives of the most marginalised and vulnerable children.”
The gift will help refurbish schools in Sierra Leone, ready to provide an education to children living in poverty. This will include intensive learning sessions using educational tablets, as well as helping children learn to read, write and count.
Michael’s tribute to Susan will also help untrained teachers complete a qualification that will equip them to inspire generations of children to pursue their learning. In this way, Susan’s passions live on and continue to transform lives.
VSO is working to ensure there's a just and joyful world for everyone - today, tomorrow and for
generations to come. To find out more about giving a Gift in Memory as Michael has done, please get in touch with Heidi and Rosie at legacies@vsoint.org.
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