SIERRA LEONE
context
When Street Child’s work began in Sierra Leone in 2008, it was the poorest nation in the world. Today, children continue to face significant barriers to learning. Many children never complete primary school, leaving without foundational literacy and numeracy skills. Poverty is the primary barrier to education, fuelling child labour and early marriage, often alongside social barriers, teenage pregnancy and parental attitudes to education. Only 61% of primary teachers in Sierra Leone are trained, with rural areas relying heavily on unqualified or volunteer teachers.
When children are able to finish primary school in rural areas, there are often no junior secondary schools close to their community. They are faced with walking long distances, moving to the closest urban town away from their families, or dropping out of school completely.
Without intervention, children risk getting stuck in a cycle of illiteracy and poverty. Street Child works to address these barriers and to empower communities to prioritise education.
YOUR IMPACT in sierra leone
269,859
Children reached through our programmes.
44,757
Adults reached, 42,444 of which received family business grants.
1,607
Classrooms across 535 schools supported through renovations or construction.
what we are doing
In Sierra Leone, Street Child works predominantly alongside an excellent national NGO partner Street Child of Sierra Leone (SCoSL), and together we have increased opportunities to access quality basic education for more than 269,000 children nationwide. Street Child has an established nationwide presence in every province.
The Education For Every Child Today (EFECT) programme is Street Child’s largest programme to date. This is a four-year project in partnership with Educate A Child (EAC), a global programme of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, supported by the Qatar Fund for Development, with the aim of increasing primary education access and retention for 40,500 vulnerable children across Sierra Leone. This will help the multi-country project's overall goal of getting 96,000 out-of-school children back in school full-time in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. To guarantee that programme effects are long-lasting, in addition to enrolment and learning, the initiative will also support teacher training and professional development as well as strengthening the livelihoods of parents and caregivers.
One of the models that Street Child uses is our award-winning ‘Family Business for Education’ scheme, which addresses individual social and financial barriers to education. To date over 42,000 families have been supported to develop a sustainable source of income through a tailored package of training, business grants and saving/mentoring. This model of financial empowerment, alongside intensive social support and community level advocacy, has led to the enrolment and retention of more than 67,000 children in school, who otherwise would have little opportunity to complete basic education.
Loans for Learning builds on our ‘Family Business for Education’ scheme. We discovered that despite being in a position to use credit to further develop their businesses after completing Street Child’s FBE scheme, almost no families were taking out loans. The lowest-income families in Sierra Leone have very limited access to the existing microcredit market. Not only is the market underdeveloped, but loan requirements—such as needing guarantors or collateral—often prevent families from qualifying. In addition, high interest rates and fears of harsh debt collection discourage many from participating. It became very clear to Street Child that there was a critical gap, in the market that we had the ability to meet.
As children go deeper into secondary education, costs rise and families were struggling to grow their businesses at a rate to support this.
We provide support by giving families access to small business loans, offering a lower interest rate (approximately 5% lower than the current market average).
With the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) methodology, children are taught in groups based on ability, rather than age or grade, to ensure their specific learning needs are being met. As part of our TaRL programmes, teachers are also trained in the specific methodology and often continue using TaRL lessons moving forward and share the methodology with new teachers to ensure quality education continues long after a Street Child programme has ended.
As part of our ongoing commitment to the primary education sector in Sierra Leone, we have started developing Junior Secondary School facilities in rural areas. Children are often faced with walking long distances, moving away from their families to be in a more urban town, or dropping out of school completely when they move on to Junior Secondary School.
By developing these Junior Secondary Schools in rural areas, we can ensure more children who complete primary school in rural locations can continue to be safe, in school and learning as they continue their education.
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