Educate a Girl, Educate a Nation - Sierra Leone

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