By: alusinerehme.wilson@awokonewspaper.sl
Freetown, SIERRA LEONE – Located some 300 meters away from the central business district of the north-eastern cosmopolitan city of Makeni along the main Makeni-Kabala highway, by far Where-Else is the one-stop center where absolute satisfaction on hospitality, continental food service, swimming, clubbing and more is guaranteed.
Established some ten years ago by famous Journalist, media owner, and entrepreneur, Stanley Bangura Jnr. with the goal to create job opportunities for a number of youths, in particular females, and to give its customers and other visitors a high-class experience across all their services and facilities. Where-Else is an establishment that has hit a new mark and now offers employment to over 20 staff plus volunteers.
The facility is famous for its newly created swimming pool for adults and its makeshift children’s swimming pool which can accommodate over 50 swimmers at a time. Unlike other swimming pools in the city and the whole of Sierra Leone by extension, the Where-Else adults swimming pool is uniquely built with multiple boreholes that make it easier to empty and refill its purely natural water and devoid of chemicals.
On the extreme left-hand corner of the Where-Else swimming pool is a sweetening spot where ice-cream and popcorn can be accessed at reasonable prices, and on the extreme right-hand corner is a general parlour that has a special corner for very important persons with its own mini-bar that offers VIPs a wider choice of drinks of their choice.
There is also a general bar that offers visitors and customers the choice to buy beverages, chilled alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks plus access to over 100 Shisha pots for Shisha addicts all affordable at very competitive prices.
Overlooking the Where-Else swimming pool is a one-storied building that has a multipurpose conference hall on the ground floor, while the second floor is a 98% locally ‘Made in Makeni’ African Restaurant selling a variety of fast food including continental dishes of all kinds. Added to the services offered at the VIP-African restaurant is an amazing array of food and drinks served while watching digital television screens showing live and repeated broadcast sporting games as well as News from within and across Sierra Leone.
The VIP African Restaurant offers a wide view from the top of the unique topography of Makeni, and just some 3 meters distance from the restaurants are buildings that form the Where-Else Guest house, an ultramodern hospitality facility that has multiple sitting rooms, plus 22 rooms including spacious executive rooms fitted with king-sized beds, seven channels television stations, well air-conditioned with water heaters available in all the rooms.
By far, all prices for services and other facilities at Where-Else are the most affordable in Makeni city and its environs.
In just five years of gradual transformation that is estimated to be worth millions of Leones, Where Else has been and is still offering the best comfort to the public, and organizers of wedding receptions, conferences, meetings, musical album launching plus other entertainment shows as well as pool parties. Games and fiestas have always wished to host their events at the Where-Else.
In an exclusive interview in Makeni on Friday, Mr. Stanley Bangura Jnr, the owner of the establishment takes pride in his business being the only center that has given 99% of employment to female staff apart from the security and pool attendant who are both males, all other staff he says are females with all top managerial roles being manned by females.
Apart from the desire to give back to society, and take advantage of investments at local levels, Mr. Bangura who doubles as the proprietor of City Media Center which has a radio and Newspaper in Makeni, says he had set up “the hospitality services and more and named it Where-Else to also inspire other locals to take advantage of investments at community levels which will deny Makenians and Sierra Leones generally from the urge of going to other nations for the purposes of having a feel of top-notch hospitality, entertainment, and food services.”
He stressed that Where-Else is a one-stop show, here is home away from home and we offer all the top-level facilities anyone can imagine at very competitive prices for everybody regardless of their race, colour, ethnicity, religion, background, and more. This is why I’ve named it as Where-Else, he replied when asked why he has named the business as Where-Else? ARW/15/1/2023
