Educate a Girl, Educate a Nation - Sierra Leone

Summary

According to the Out-of-School Research (Coinco/UNICEF), about 300,000 school-age (6-15 years) children are out of school. The majority of them have never been to school, while those who started school dropped out due mainly to poverty and teenage pregnancy. Project supports poor and vulnerable families and teenage-mothers to send their children to school, while they embark on income generating activities to take care of their families.

What is the issue, problem, or challenge?

The Right to Education is one of the fundamental human rights for every child, girls and boys alike, enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and Sierra Leone's Child Rights Act (2007). However, due to lack of a system of social safety nets in Sierra Leone, a lot of children are denied access to basic education. There are no social safety nets for vulnerable families in the country. Children from poor and marginalized families are not catered or cared for.

How will this project solve this problem?

Girls at risk of dropping out of school due to socio-economic and domestic violence at home and school-based violence will receive mentoring and psychosocial services to help them settle down and concentrate in school. Children will be supported with scholarships to buy school uniforms and school supplies. The project also supports girl-mothers equipping them with marketable skills and start up fund that will enable them generate regular income to take care of themselves and their children.

Potential Long Term Impact

Healthy, well educated and emancipated women will rear healthy, well educated and emancipated children - who are an excellent foundation for a new & free society. The project gives teenage mothers a 2nd chance to develop themselves into useful citizens, by being gainfully employed so that they can take care of themselves and support their children, contributing meaningfully to society. Teenage mothers break free from the chains of the vicious cycle that entraps unskilled & resource-poor girls.