Water, sanitation & sustainability - Sierra Leone

Resilience in the Rain: Supporting Communities Through Sierra Leone’s Rainy Season

The rainy season in Sierra Leone brings both life and difficulty. While the rains nourish crops and replenish water sources, they also bring widespread challenges for rural families. Flooded roads, contaminated wells, and limited access to healthcare make daily life extremely hard—especially for women, children, and vulnerable households. Since May, heavy rains have tested the strength of communities and infrastructure across the country.

In many villages, the rains isolate families for weeks. Roads become impassable, markets are cut off, and food supplies diminish as stored crops spoil. Water sources that sustain life during the dry season often become unsafe as runoff contaminates wells and hand-dug pits. This leads to increased cases of diarrhoea, cholera, and malaria—the latter spreading rapidly as mosquitoes breed in stagnant water. For rural families, each rainy season brings not only discomfort but the threat of illness and food insecurity.

Women and girls bear much of the burden. They must walk longer distances to find clean water and spend more hours caring for children or relatives who fall sick. Many manage households under severe pressure, while children’s schooling and nutrition are disrupted. Yet despite these hardships, communities continue to show remarkable unity and resilience. Villagers often work together to repair flooded paths, share limited food, and raise awareness about hygiene and disease prevention.

Progress Amid the Challenges

At WellFound, we remain committed to supporting rural communities throughout these difficult months. Our current programme has expanded to six new communities in Sierra Leone, focusing on clean water, sanitation, and nutrition. The approach begins with community engagement—meeting with chiefs, elders, women’s groups, and youth to ensure every activity responds to real needs.

Each community now has a Community Agreement, defining shared responsibilities for managing wells, latrines, and gardens. WASH Committees, which include strong female representation, have been trained in hygiene promotion, leadership, and maintenance of facilities. These committees are leading hygiene campaigns that help prevent waterborne diseases, even in the toughest conditions.

In parallel, nutrition initiatives are expanding. Families are establishing community gardens and adopting better food storage practices, helping them maintain access to fresh vegetables when markets are unreachable. This improves household nutrition and strengthens local resilience.

Thriving Together

Through this work, communities are taking charge of their development and embracing WellFound’s principle of Collective Prosperity—shared wellbeing for all. Even amid heavy rains, hope continues to grow as families in Sierra Leone move forward with resilience, dignity, and strength.

We are pleased to share key updates from our ongoing community development work in Moyibo village, Sierra Leone. Our activities continue to strengthen access to education, food security, and community cohesion, with particular emphasis on building international connections and empowering women.

A major milestone this year has been the launch of a cultural exchange between Moyibo Primary School and a partner school in Devon, United Kingdom. Children from Moyibo have begun exchanging letters, drawings, and video messages with their peers in Devon. This initiative is fostering curiosity, confidence, and cross-cultural understanding among the pupils. Teachers from both schools have noted increased motivation and pride among students as they share their experiences and learn about different ways of life. Plans are underway to expand this connection through joint projects on themes such as climate, daily life, and community values.

In agriculture, the women of Moyibo are taking an increasingly active role in managing and expanding the village vegetable garden. Over the last six months, more than 30 women have been regularly engaged in planting, watering, harvesting, and managing produce. Crops such as okra, cassava leaves, tomatoes, and eggplant are now being grown more consistently. The garden not only contributes to household nutrition but is becoming a small-scale income source, with surplus vegetables sold at local markets. We have provided ongoing training in composting, seed selection, and water-efficient irrigation to support the garden's sustainability.

Importantly, these two activities—education and agriculture—are mutually reinforcing. The sense of ownership and pride among community members, particularly women and children, has deepened. The inclusion of women in the garden initiative is also shaping new norms around leadership and collective prosperity.

We thank our partners and donors for your continued belief in this work. Your support is directly helping rural communities in Sierra Leone thrive with dignity, resilience, and a renewed sense of global connection.