Empowering the Girl Child through Education

Dear GlobalGiving and Donors,

Our project (Empowering the Girl through Education) is a life changing activity which has done a lot by improving the lives of girls in rural Sierra Leone more especially the Northern Region. Our project has gained popularity amongst girls due to its major contributions and life changing activities for girls. Our project has give voice to girl children, give rights and power to Girls has been the bedrock of this project since its inception, which has really put a lot of smiles into the faces of a lot of girls.

This project has engaged in a lot of activities ranging from ending early and forceful marriages, teenage pregnancy campaigns, protect and guide to choose a career path, advocacy and relief exercise. Within the past months it has gain a lot of success stories. We have able to end 20 marriages and take further actions against perpetrators. Also, our campaign has engaged authorities in enforcing the laws which has to do with early and forceful marriages.  

Our continued supports to 250 girls who were force to get marriage still continues and these affected girls need to continue their education for another academic year. Girls supported were able to be agents of change in their communities, raising awareness of the importance of girls’ right, accessing education and training. Also, girls who were stopped from being early mothers, join their peers in advocacy, using themselves as an example of change.  Their peers were touched by the campaign words of ending teenage pregnancy and early child marriage. Also, our campaign has joined the country First lady with a campaign message “Hands Off our girls”. With these efforts it has put smiles again into the faces of these girl children.

Furthermore, 38 schools were visited with message “Hands Off our Girls” this message sends shock waves to these communities and traditional leaders summoned themselves into urgent meetings to support the claims of these girls. The campaign message was well greeted and gains a lot of momentum.    

This strategy really pays off as many girls who were victims of early and forceful marriages have return back to school. These girls have been enrolled, admitted and provided with educational facilities. These girls were provided with different support such as uniforms, tuition fees, bags, pen, pencils, vest and books. Teen mothers were provided with baby used items. These girls were also provided with food and non food items.

The rural poor communities are facing serious Harmful Practices and our project has taken stiff measures on providing justice for victims. The prevalence of the Harmful Practices against girls, especially FGM and child marriage in Sierra Leone are among the highest in the world. Our message about FGM is wait until a girl turn 18 before she could decide on what to do.  

The fulfillment of women’s and girls’ rights is challenged by communities’ norms that maintain the status quo and stereotypes about men, women, girls and boys and their respective roles in society.

Our outreach programme helped us to discover more girls who cannot access education and other rights. The urgent needs that were discovered are books, uniforms, backpacks, sanitary pads, shoes and transport facility and other school charges. This has been a barrier to access and retain in schools. There is an economic and social change which has increased costs since after the general elections in 2018 due to the high inflation in the country, parents and foster care givers prefer to send their girl child to the farm than attend school. In these visited communities poverty is really visible and one can feel it, which has lead these children into illegal practices like prostitution, gender-based violence and early marriages, girls and women are deep suffering. Poverty has been the bedrock for early and forceful marriages and we discovered the negative impact levied on these children.

The outreach programme reveals more teenage pregnancies, high dropout rate, women battering, an increase in forceful marriages practices in hidden communities, inadequate provision of daily needs and abuse of Child’s Rights.

We appreciate our supports and GlobalGiving for this opportunity to help these girls. There is a lot to do but we cannot do it without your continued supports.

Dear GlobalGiving and Partners,

Empowering the Girl through Education Project is a life changing activity which has impacted a lot of lives for girls in rural Sierra Leone more especially the Northern Region. This project has become more popular due to its role in the lives of these girl-children, given rights and empowering these Girls has been the bedrock of this project, which has helped lot of girls regain their lost dignities.

The recent visit from GlobalGiving to our project sites made us realize that much needs to be done in terms of awareness raising about the felt needs of these beneficiaries. Though, the project has created a lot of impact but more needs to be done and also to better inform our donors about the growing demands of these beneficiaries we cater for. Our guest from globalgiving also visited an orphanage primary school run by the organisation which really needs attention to further continue its operations. The guest further held host of interviews with our beneficiaries and capture a lot of information which triggered her to commend all our work and your value contributions.

Our focus on rescuing these girls who has been engaged in forceful and early child marriages, teenage pregnancy, has increase considerable, due to the very fact that new strategies has been employed by the organisation to tackle such occurrences.

As our advocacy continues, we have identified 290 girls affected that need to continue their education. What we did to identify these girls, we used the supported ones to help their friends to come forward. Also, girls who were stopped from being early mothers, join their peers in advocacy, using themselves as an example of change.  

Furthermore, 50 schools were visited with messages of “I am a girl, Not a Bride” this message sends shock waves to these communities and traditional leaders.

Also, we join a national campaign called “Hands off our girls” this was launched by the country first lady. This was done after a police report shows that over 8500 girls were raped within a month. And the report further said that these figures are twice double than the once reported. And we further visited a rainbow center, where we met some of these girls and their stories were really touching. With this national cry Government declared the situation as “national Emergency”. Our campaign now is to advocate to law maker to increase punishment for perpetuators.

We really appreciate the support from donors to this project. Your supports have really put a lot of smiles into the faces of these girls.

These communities are facing serious Harmful Practices and our project has taken stiff measures on providing justice for victims. The prevalence of the Harmful Practices against girls, especially FGM and child marriage in Sierra Leone are among the highest in the world.

We wish to extend thanks to you as one of our generous supporters, who have worked with us to meet the need of our beneficiaries. Our heartfelt thanks goes to GlobalGiving and all our supporters for making this project a success.  Your partnership, donations, love and concerns, means a lot to us. We love you very much.

We cannot achieve this alone but with your support this can be achieved. We are still looking forward to your support in making this possible.