Transforming the lives of Adolescent Girls through the AEMAG Project
ActionAid's support to Adolescent girls in Bo district through funds from People's Postcode Lotteryle
“Action to Empower Marginalized Adolescent Girls” project funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery has been implemented in two phases for over two years in Sierra Leone, geared towards the empowerment of marginalized adolescent girls both in and out of school.
The project supports the education of girls in Western Area and Bo district in Sierra Leone. It also perfectly resonates with the Government’s “Free Quality School Education” program and the “Radical Inclusion Policy”, which creates a platform for girls to access education regardless of their circumstances.
The direct participants reached over the two-year period are 600 girls in school across 10 communities in Freetown and Bo. These girls get empowerment sessions facilitated by school mentors trained by ActionAid. They are also supported with learning materials and other necessary items to ensure they stay in school. There is other over 200 girls supported with skills training in tailoring, hairdressing, and catering. They receive start-up kits to prepare them to practice of their skills.
Many girls in Sierra Leone encounter discrimination, inequality, lack of access to education and other social and cultural challenges, which sets them aback in terms of empowerment and self-reliance; this is often exacerbated by poverty.
Battu, Kadiatu, and Saffiatu have been part of the AEMAG project and have experienced significant improvement in their lives through the support of Players of People’s Postcode Lottery. Once, they found themselves bounded by the common thread of adversity, each with unique struggles that resonates with the situation of many other girls in the country.
12-years-old Battu’s story is stringed with parental loss at an early age. Orphaned by the Ebola Outbreak, she hawked farm produce for her grandmother to meet their daily needs. She was also separated from her brother and had no opportunity to go to secondary school.
“My mother died during Ebola outbreak and my grandmother is the only family I have now. I hawk cassava leaves and other food stuff for my grandmother so we can be able to survive. I daily go through many hurdles, and I’m sidelined because of I don’t have a mother, I don’t go to school and because we are poor. I got separated from my little brother who was sent to a relative in another village because our grandmother can’t afford to keep both of us, that also has been difficult for me to cope with,” she said, with tears welled in her eyes.
She longed for education and got that chance when she crossed paths with the implementing partners of the AEMAG Project in Bo, ActionAid Sierra Leone and COME SL. She got enlisted for the project and “Now I’m no longer provoked or marginalized. I live a dignified life among my peers as I have decent uniform to put on just like every other girl and all my school supplies and money for lunch are being provided through this project. I thank People’s Postcode Lottery for supporting me and I hope that they continue to invest in my education,” she expressed with joy.
Kadiatu on the other hand bore the weight of responsibility on her young shoulders. After the death of her father, she had to labor hard to support her family: Her dreams of education faded with each passing day. but through the intervention of the AEMAG Project, she found herself re-enrolled in school and provided with all the necessities to succeed.
“I dropped out of school after my father died and my mother couldn’t afford all the school expense. I got re-enrolled in school now only because of the AEMAG project. After being put in school, I was also supplied with all needed materials to aid my stay in school.
Without this project, I would have been out of school, with no one to support my education,” she declared.
No longer burdened by lack or shame, Saffiatu, another participant of the AEMAG project found her voice through empowerment training, now advocating for herself and her peers.
According to Saffiatu, “My father abandoned us when I was quite young and left my mother to shoulder all the responsibility. We have been struggling since and even to come to school is a challenge. I wore slippers to school because my mother can’t afford to buy shoes and most other school items for me.”
“But since being a part of this project, everything has changed for the better. I now eat in school every day because of the support I receive and also have all school items including notebooks, readers, pens, shoes, uniforms and sanitary kit which now enables me to come to school even on my period. Before, it was not so as I didn’t have the confidence to come to school and sit among my friends when on my period. The AEMAG project has restored my dignity in every sense of it,” she added.
Concluding, she said, “I wasn’t bold to articulate well in public, but since I started receiving the empowerment training, I not only speak in public, I sensitize my peers on SGBV and its forms, from what I’ve learnt from the training”.