Adopted teen brings humanitarian aid to African roots

19-year-old Usifu Bangura has 100 pounds of school supplies he will take with him to Sierra Leone to distribute to the needy children in the village he spent the first few years of his life.

He recently tracked down his widowed birth mother and older brother there. She gave her three youngest children up for adoption to American parents when she realized she was too poverty stricken to take care of them.
Bangura has always felt a strong connection to the land of his birth and his family. That’s why he was so thrilled a few years ago to travel from Montana to Idaho Falls where his twin siblings has been adopted.

“I’ve always had a connection with them to be honest, Bangura said. “And just knowing there was somebody out there who had the same experiences as me, and coming from the same kind of background and I knew there was some kind of missing piece — that I wasn’t just alone.”

Bangura has worked construction the last year since graduating from high school to earn enough money for a month long trip to Sierra Leone. He feels drawn to return.

“This is where I came from,” Bangura said. “This is my background. This is my childhood. This is where I grew up, and being a minority in Montana where you really stick out, so I didn’t want to be the kind of person who went on with their life without knowing where they came from.”

Besides school supplies, Bangura will being several life straws that will filter contaminated water there.
His humanitarian aid won’t end there.

“We put together a team of professionals who will help me start a humanitarian aid project, to start a non-profit after I come back from Sierra Leone, so this trip will be a test run.”