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The National Executive of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) visited Orange Sierra Leone on Monday, 27th October , 2025, as part of the ongoing courtesy calls to various partner organizations and stakeholders.

Welcoming the delegation at the Orange Sierra Leone Head Office at Hill Station, Freetown, , the Company Secretary, Madam Danetta Younge expressed gratitude for the visit, saying SLAJ and Orange Sierra Leone are long-term partners and that the visit is a stepping stone in strengthening ties.

She assured that Orange Sierra Leone values the relevance of the media and its potential to contribute to the success and growth of the company. “We have a good working relationship with SLAJ and the media as a whole”, Madam Danetta said, adding that the company currently has up to ten media houses with which they have contracted over the last five years.

According to her, because of the good relationship with SLAJ, the company factors in a specified amount in its Stakeholder Relation Budget every year to contribute towards the holding of the Association’s Annual General Meeting (AGM).

She congratulated the new National Executive and encouraged them to take off from where the Ahmed Sahid Nasralla Executive left, assuring them of continued support to ensure success.
In his remarks, the President of SLAJ, Alhaji Manika Kamara, thanked the Company Secretary, Madam Danetta Younge and team, including Alfie Barrie, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Orange Sierra Leone, and Akuna Paul Mohamed Koroma, the Public Relations Support, for the warm reception, saying he has always looked forward to the visit.

He referred to Orange Sierra Leone as one of the most dependable corporate partners of SLAJ, citing the scholarships given to five SLAJ members to pursue their doctoral degrees, some years ago. That support, he said, helped greatly in transforming the media landscape by making the country have homegrown PHD holders at the Mass Communication Department, Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone.

He pleaded with Orange Sierra Leone to continue in this vein, saying, “This time we want to see scholarships for our members to pursue first degrees in Mass Communication, as there are many students who are finding it difficult in financial terms to go through their studies”.

He maintained that if Orange Sierra Leone can set an amount every year to go into the Welfare Fund to support students entering university, it will be a big achievement for the new Executive. This, he said, is due to the growing need to strengthen the capacity of journalists to maintain a high level of professionalism and to give a matching value to the newly introduced National Fund for Public Interest Media reporting.

President Alhaji Manika Kamara informed the Orange Team about the ongoing rehabilitation of the SLAJ National Secretariat in a bid to transform it into a resource center for journalists, and hence the need for effective internet connectivity.
He pleaded for affordable data not only for SLAJ but for other media houses, as that has been one of the biggest challenges facing their smooth operations.