October 5, 2021
By Aruna Kamara (BO)
School going children in the operational area of Women Against Violence and Exploitation in Sierra Leone (WAVES) Sierra Leone have commended WAVES- SL for protecting their space to be educated in order to contribute meaningfully towards the development of the country.
They made this statement during an outreach activity under a project titled: ‘Protect Wi Gal Pikin Dem’, with the objective to address sexual and gender based violence against adolescent girls.
According to the school children, the messages received from WAVES through their mentor and the outreach activities of the organization have contributed immensely in protecting their safe space and they will not disappoint the donors of the project.
Tiangay a pupil of SLC Primary School in Blama in Kenema District said that that she will make sure that she treat her academic work with the seriousness it deserves in order to be educated and to be of help to our parents and the nation, as according to her she wants to be educated like the first lady or her husband.
The community people in WAVES operational area said that they are impressed with the work of WAVES in their community, particularly when they are seeing the boldness and zeal in their children to be educated, adding that they are always discussing who they want to be in the future and this make the children discourage those who want to foolish them.
“I can now see my daughter studying at night without telling her to do so and the most surprising thing she does is when she advises her brothers older than her to be serious with their education. I like this. WAVES your work in our chiefdom is unprecedented, keep it up’’, Tommy Benya said.
The Project officer of the Wi Gal Pikin Dem, Sia Salomi Yusif, said that the children are the nation’s wealth and the project protects the child to have quality education because that will bring development to the family, community and the nation at large.
She said that the project will also protect, support and monitor the child to be educated, encourage the child in decision making process because their views are important as well, and to ensure special protection for girls because they are the mothers of tomorrow, discourage child labor and child trafficking.
According to Madam Yusif, hygiene messages were delivered to the pupils during their outreach to the schools including in the morning the child should wash properly before going to school, cleaning of their school environment and the child should be well dressed before and after school.
Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights(SRHR) messages, she said were also passed on to the pupils including visitation to health facilities for more knowledge on menstruation, change pads three times , use clean water and soap to clean up and there should be open communication to parents and mentors during menstruation.
Madam Yusif said that they encourage children to take education as there priority and abstain from sex, say no to early marriage in order not to experience teenage pregnancy, adding that “we are the girls at all level against sexual abuse and encourage them to report SGBV cases to the immediate authority in order to avoid sexual harassment, and phonographic films must be avoided in the presence of the children in order not to lure them into early sex until they are educated”.
The Communications Officer of WAVES- SL, Alusine Rogers said that the project is supported by COMIC Relief and they were operating in five chiefdoms in Bo and Kenema districts including Lugbu, Wondeh, Small Bo Chiefdom, Bongor and Bagbo.
“We reached out to 25 girls primary schools in these chiefdoms with an objective of sensitizing both parents and children alike the relevance of girl child education and the need to ensuring a safe school environment”, she said.
Mr. Rogers noted that they are restless until they see that the campaign to preventing and reducing SGBV against the girls and women becomes everybody’s business so that the crime will get reduced.