Educate a Girl, Educate a Nation - Sierra Leone

Dear project partners.

Educating girls is crucial as this impacts the family and the entire nation. 

• UNICEF believes it's simply the case that when you have healthy, well educated and emancipated women, these women in turn rear healthy, well educated and emancipated children.  
  
  
• "To educate girls is to reduce poverty," says Kofi Annan.
  
  
• According to UNESCO, “education and poverty eradication are inextricably bound”.

That is why we are so very appreciative of the joint opportunity that we have to educate girls in Sierra Leone.  Our support is ensuring that they do not drop out of school.  We are providing an educational lifeline and helping them to pursue their dreams.  

In a previous report, we shared a letter from Kadiatu.  In this report, we share a video of her - where you can see her and hear her.  Kadiatu is very thankful for the continued support she has received - as she is finishing senior secondary school and has taken the BECE exam. 

Kadiatu tells us a little more in her video about her accomplishments, her challenges and her goals. She mentions specific areas of support - including transportation to school, text books and teacher notes/ handouts.

Your support is a big part of why Kadiatu is going to complete her education and she is truly thankful.  We are so thankful for the opportunity to make a difference in her life!

With great appreciation,

The Develop Africa Team

Links:

• Video from Kadiatu

Dear Project Supporters,

In July 2015, we introduced you to one of this project's beneficiaries, Isata. In this report, we provide you with her case study and progress.

Isata was born in August 1999. She is sixteen and a half years old. She comes from a very poor home. Isata’s father abandoned them when Isata was very young. Her mother is a single parent and they live in a slum dwelling and hawk charcoal for a living.

Janet said, "One day Isata and her mother went to sell charcoal in my compound. At age eleven years Isata had not started schooling. Upon enquiry I found out that she was not going to school, because her mother could not afford her school charges. I asked the mother to enroll Isata in school with assurance of sponsorship. I enrolled Isata in the Develop Africa sponsorship project."

Isata started school in class one at the Saint Thomas Municipal School in 2009. She was always among the top ten pupils in class. After six years of primary schooling, Isata has graduated into Junior Secondary School (JSS) at the Freetown Secondary School for Girls.

All things being equal, she will spend three years in the JSS and will sit to the Basic Education Certificate Examination which will qualify her to enter the senior Secondary School.

Isata and her mother are very grateful to Develop Africa and its donors whose sponsorship has made it possible for her to go to school. Isata is working hard in her new school to achieve her goal.

YOUR support made this happen! Thanks so much.

Best Regards,

Develop Africa team

Links:

• Closing the Gender Gap: Lessons from Africa