The University of Makeni began life as The Fatima Institute which opened in September 2005 with the aim of promoting faith and the economic, social, political and religious development of the people of Sierra Leone and beyond. The University is located in the city of Makeni, in the Bombali District of the Northern Province of Sierra Leone, West Africa.

After four years of successful growth the institute received accreditation from the Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Education to operate as a private university – the third university in Sierra Leone, and assumed the name University of Makeni, with the original campus being called Fatima College. As part of the continuing development of the new University, a second constituent college, known as St. Joseph’s College of Management and ICT was established in 2010 in the nearby village of Yoni.

The Patron of the University is Rt. Rev. Dr. George Biguzzi, Bishop Emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Makeni, and the Chancellor of the University is Bishop Natale Paganelli.

The Fatima College campus has more than twenty classrooms, administrative centre, a library (with over twenty five thousand books and periodicals), resource centre and a communication centre with internet facilities for students and staff. An on-site female hostel accommodates forty-two students, and the construction of a large new multi-purpose auditorium has recently been completed. Plans are already in place for additional student hostels and staff quarters. In addition, older buildings are being upgraded to the standard of recently constructed facilities to make them accessible for the College’s wheelchair users and blind students. Fatima College has more than 60 acres of land for further expansion.

Radio Maria, the Catholic radio station that broadcasts daily to most parts of Sierra Leone, is located a short walk from the campus and is used as a resource centre for students of Development Communication.

The recently constructed Yoni campus has over ten classrooms and a computer laboratory that can hold fifty students. As well as accommodation for staff and students, Yoni campus includes additional land space of three hundred and two acres.

Source: UNIMAK Website