Sangha of Auspicious Companions

The Amputees Farming in Sierra Leone

After Sierra Leone’s civil war left nearly 30,000 people without limbs and, too often, without dignity, pastor-turned-farmer Mambud Samai refused to accept that this was simply how things had to be. He has since taught over 100 amputees to grow food sustainably, turning smallholder plots into sources of income, community, and self-determination. One early participant, Mustapha Bockarie, who was once told by friends that he was a burden, now runs a community farm, raises goats, and keeps bees. His transformation is a quiet rebuke to every assumption made about what a person with limb loss can do. When a 2024 cohort of Samai’s initiative, Farming on Crutches, built a more accessible wheelbarrow from bamboo and bicycle wheels, participant Zainab Makieu offered a reminder that carries weight well beyond the farm: “disability is not inability.” What Samai has built is less a farming program and more evidence that when one person carries a skill back from the margins and places it in someone else’s hands, the reach of a single act of belief can travel far.

Be The Change

Think of someone in your life who society might overlook — someone struggling, sidelined, or seen as a burden — and reach out to them today with a simple, genuine message of acknowledgment and real attention that says, “I see what you’re capable of.”