The language i speak is themne - update on the education project - sierra leone

UPDATE ON THE EDUCATION PROJECT - Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is divided administratively into four provinces: The North, East, West and South. Each province is divided into districts and each district is further divided into chiefdoms. Gbendembu Ngowahun Chiefdom is located in the Northern Province of Sierra Leone in the Bombali District. According to the 2004 National Population Census, the chiefdom has a population of 29,971 of which 13,995 are males and 15,976 are females. This is one of two chiefdoms country wide that are inhabited by the Loko which is one of the minority ethnic groupings in the country and amongst the most marginalized in terms of social, infrastructural and other economic facilities.

These people are generally farmers of crops and small ruminants with a small minority involved in petty trading. Those who move to the nearby urban areas are most widely known for the laborious business of selling coconuts in push carts and their involvement in other menial jobs. This actually means they may not be sending much remittances home as what they earn can only barely sustain them in the cities. For these migrants, their families (wives and children) who remain in the villages still have to depend on their efforts through farming and other related activities to fend for themselves and children. This is why GEKO-SL is supporting these women in health, agriculture, skills training and other income generating activities.

Social Context

In Sierra Leone, the existing adult literacy rate of 31 percent is still one of the lowest across the globe. Primary enrollment rate in the early 90s dropped to as low as 51 percent with significant increase estimated at 90.4 percent in 2001. According to the Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey, this percentage realized further increase up to 121.8 percent by the end of the 2002/2003 academic school year. In spite of this percentage increase, there is still a significant difference in school attendance between male and females. For both poor and non-poor households, more male attend school than females.

Efforts by both government and private voluntary organizations or Non-Governmental organizations are being adopted to improve the literacy rate in the country as key to the country's development. With support from donors like the World Bank and African Development Bank, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) kicked off the "Rehabilitation of Basic Education Project" or the "Sababu" project which involves the construction of both primary and secondary schools in all 149 Chiefdoms and other strategic settlements in the country. The project, implemented through its development partners also involves the provision of school materials and textbooks, upgrading laboratory facilities to promote science education, and supporting the training of teachers to match the anticipated increase in school attendance.

To narrow the gender gap in role of male and female school attendance, the GoSL and its partners have embarked on continuous awareness raising programmes through media and community sensitization meetings. Although schools levy other charges, primary education is claimed to be free. Added to this, the Government is providing financial support to every girl child in the east and northern provinces that enters Junior Secondary School. These two provinces have been identified to have the lowest female school roll in the country.

Crucial challenges in the area of education as the country transitioned from its recovery to development phase are still outstanding. Need for more school structures, materials and equipment is still essential to attain its objective of providing quality education and ultimately maximizing the country's literacy rate. Furthermore, there is need for increased number of quality technical and vocational institutions to meet the country's technological challenges. To achieve this, there is increasing demand for trained and qualified personnel particularly in the area of science. (Source: Council of Churches Sierra Leone: 2002 - 2009 Strategic Plan)

The Sierra Leone Integrated Household Survey [SLIHS, 2003/04] indicates that 30% of children of primary school-going are still out of school. Many of those who eventually access schooling do not complete. Causes of the non-attendance include hidden and indirect costs, cultural barriers to girl child education, child labour and lack of nearby school. The northern and eastern provinces have the lowest level of education comparatively. In addition, these two provinces have the lowest rate of girl-child enrollment in schools.

The few educated Loko people are mostly males. The females either never went to school or often drop out of school to get married. The typical Loko believe in giving more chance to the boy child than the girl child in education. This is because, they believed that boys would have to carry the family name while the girls would eventually live their homes and go to their husbands.

There is the case of Rugiatu Konateh, the daughter of Pa Gibrilla Konateh. She got pregnant in her third year in the high school. After she got delivered of the baby, the father would neither support or allow the boyfriend to assist her to continue with her education any more nor would he allow her to marry the man who got her pregnant since it is against his religion for a father to allow his daughter to marry a man with whom she had a child out of wedlock.

Now even though the girl is willing to return to school, the father would not support her schooling any more, and her mother cannot afford. This is one real case that is typical of what happens on a daily basis in this culture.

This situation, coupled with the fact that poverty prevents some parents from sending their children to school made it imperative on GEKO-SL to step in and assist in returning children to school through scholarships and agriculture and income support for their parents.

The climate of Sierra Leone is tropical, with humid and hot temperatures. There are two seasons; the dry season November to April and rainy seasons May to October. The farming calendar follows very closely this seasonal pattern, planting activities being done mainly in the rainy season, while harvesting and land preparation is done in the dry season.

Political Context

Democratic process is being gradually decentralized and strengthened following the end of the war in 2002 and the holding of election in that same year. Since then, government has conducted local council elections, which was abandoned in the late 60s. The local councils are the elected representatives of the people at various community levels referred to as wards. They are expected to channel the development process in their respective community. The process, which is still at its initial stage, devolves some amount of power from the central government to chiefdom and ward levels. For the process to succeed there is need for considerable capacity building of the councilors to enable them effectively analyse their problems and put in place strategies to address the problems in a participatory, accountable and transparent manner. The Decentralization Secretariat (Dec Sec), the government structure established to facilitate the decentralization process is aggressively working towards building the capacity of the Councils with support from donors and contribution from the GoSL. More support is required from other partners to ensure the decentralization process works, as it is a channel for rapid development. These initiatives will be reinforced with the restructuring of the judicial system to execute justice without fear or favour and swiftly. (Source: Council of Churches Sierra Leone: 2002 - 2009 Strategic Plan)

Some Teachers and community Pastor at the Education Project Meeting

Geko Sierra Leone has the mandate to operate all over Sierra Leone. At the moment Geko Sierra Leone is operating in Gbendembu Ngowahun and Sanda Tainraren Chiefdom.

The organization has rehabilitated a health Center funded by GEKO Unna in Germany (BMZ) and the British Department for International Development (DIFID). The organization also engaged in up-grading the condition of women, children and youths. It

A cross section of community members at the meeting

is engaged in providing micro-credit, skills training and agricultural activities funded by AWDF. The fight against HIV/AIDS and Gender Based Violence is funded by National Aids Secretariat (NAS) Sierra Leone. The Education programme which is recently introduced has received $5000 from fund raising through Globalgiving.

Some children beneficiaries

The Education programme is well received by the communities especially among the children who have often been deprived of their education and placed in farms to work for their families at an early age. The Community members are well aware of the fact that, their children have been left behind and they themselves are not happy that their children are out of school. Most of the people had their children out of school because of cost implications involving buying uniforms and school materials which is not affordable for most the people.

Women in jubilant mood about the education project

The education programme has not got enough funding as stipulated in the budget. However, with the US$5000 received so far, we have identified and are currently supporting 30 children (11 boys and 19 girls). Five of the girls had dropped out of school due to pregnancy, three others dropped out simply because their parents could not afford. The rest of the children had conditions that threatened their further continuation in school. But thank God for Global giving and our numerous donors, these are now assured of continued schooling. We have supported these children with uniform and learning materials. We are as well supporting the parents/guardians (All women) of these children with agricultural inputs and micro-

Make-shift school building

credit to make the project sustainable so that they will be able to support the schooling for these children even when the project phases out.

The interior of building with classes in session

We also intend to erect a two-block school building if funds become available, so as to l accommodate some pupils who for the moment are sheltering in a make-shift building as a school as shown above. Some teachers recruited within the community are not trained or qualified. These are often the only ones available within these village settings since the few trained teachers prefer working in the relatively socially endowed urban areas. We therefore intend, with available funds, to sponsor these community teachers such as the one above, to be trained using the distance education programme that currently exists in various parts of the country.