By Leanne Greenfield | Development Intern
The conditions women and girls endure whilst in detention in Sierra Leone are hard. Detention centres lack the facilities needed by the female inmates and their children. Products such as sanitary items, soap, and nappies for babies are not regularly provided. The poor access to welfare support in these centres undermines the self-worth of the inmates and denies them their dignity. At AdvocAid, we believe that everyone should have the right to proper sanitation and nutrition, and that is why we work hard to combat the poor resources and facilities at the centres in Sierra Leone.
In October 2017, our team in Kenema visited the Female Correctional Centre to provide 18 female inmates and their children there with welfare packs. Included in these packs were essential toiletries, such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, bathing soap, and laundry soap; food, including rice, beans, and onions; and clothing, from dresses, to blouses and pants, and baby outfits. It is vital that these welfare packs continue to be supplied because without them, the women and children in the centres would struggle to maintain a basic level of hygiene, self-care, and quality of life.
As part of our goal to ensure that inmates have opportunities in their communities upon their release, AdvocAid provides its clients with skills-based training materials whilst they are in detention. We supplied the inmates with beads, scissors, and string and found that this was a great way to encourage the women to make their own jewellery, something which they continue to thoroughly enjoy. Giving the women purpose during their time in detention facilitates the opportunity for them to learn and to grow and, importantly, it enables them to feel pride in the work that they produce.
Whilst the 18 women at the Correctional Centre in Kenema can now clean, wash their clothes, eat nutritious food, and practice vocational skills, there are a total of 139 women in correctional centres across the country all of whom require welfare support. We encourage you to donate to this project so that more women nationwide have access to adequate human rights standards and so that female inmates can care for their children with dignity.
Please support AdvocAid in empowering women and girls in Sierra Leone today, by forwarding this news to your contacts and encouraging them donate to this project, or another of our Global Giving projects today.
We encourage you to sign up to our newsletter via our website, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instragram, to find out all the latest news about AdvocAid’s work.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
