Education for Every Child Today (EFECT) is not only what we are working towards achieving here at Street Child, but it is also the name of an exciting project we are working on. In partnership with Educate a Child (EAC) a global programme of the Education Above All (EAA) Foundation, supported by the Qatar Fund for Development, EFECT aims to place and retain 96,000 primary school aged children in education across Sierra Leone, Liberia, and northeast Nigeria over the next three and a half years, hoping to make a lasting change at individual, community, and classroom levels.
A lot has happened over the last six months! Over this initial project period, we have been able to identify the communities and out-of-school children who will be involved in the project. Whilst this may sound like a simple task, it is this part of the project which is vital in ensuring that those who need support most, receive it. Engaging with some of the most remote communities across all three countries is crucial in allowing us to create conversations around the key role that education has in the lives of children, as well as highlighting that children have the right to attend school. As part of this, 14,000 caregivers have been engaged across 290 communities within the 3 countries, and over 9,000 out of school children have already been identified to enrol into education this academic year.
As the Street Child project Rural Advocacy Officer remarked:
‘By the end of the engagement, they (the community) were motivated and understood that their children having access to education can create positive changes and improve their lives in the community.’
In the next step of the project process, after the identification and enrolment of the children we are working with, we look at the way in which the schools, communities and families are going to be supported. This is to make sure children are then able to stay in school and schools themselves can be run efficiently and effectively. One of the key barriers identified is children do not have access to a school. This highlighted the need for Street Child to identify communities for school construction because, without the school buildings themselves, receiving an education is impossible!
School construction varies across the countries we are working in, and the approach is tailored to be most effective for that area. Across Sierra Leone and Liberia, this is a 3-classroom structure whereas, in north-eastern Nigeria, due to this area being conflict-affected, Temporary Learning Centres (TLCs) are used instead. Teachers for TLCS have also been recruited, and recruitment and training for teachers in Liberia and Sierra Leone will take place during the next year.
Outside of the school environment itself, ensuring children are supported at home is incredibly important to their education. This is where the Family Business for Education (FBE) comes into play. As the name suggests, FBE is to help families overcome the financial barriers to their children’s education through business! The scheme works with caregivers to develop business plans, supplying a grant to fund these and then providing support and training to implement all they need to be successful. The aim of this initiative is long-term; building economic sustainability for families will bring about benefits that will outlive any project. In fact, for every FBE we support, two children are kept in school! The benefits of these schemes have already been felt over the last six months by caregivers in Sierra Leone, 300 of which have already received their business grants, with a further 1,700 due to receive theirs soon!
This work is especially essential in Rhobana, a community in the northwest province of Sierra Leone which is dependent on agriculture. Many children in Rhobana are out of school because families need them to provide additional labour on their farms in order to earn a livelihood and survive.
Street Child’s local Rural Advocacy Officer worked alongside communities in Rhobana, through open discussions around the specific barriers to education in the region and how they can be addressed. This prompted a campaign, critically with local Chief support, to advocate for caregivers to enrol their children into school before the start of term in 2023.
The Rural Advocacy Officer reflected on working alongside the Rhobana community, acknowledging that:
“…the community members in Rhobana did not understand the value of education when I first arrived” but said that through increased engagement, the community felt motivated and understood the positive change education can make to the lives of the people in the community.
So, what’s next?
More advocacy, enrolment, and classroom construction! Advocating for children’s access to education, constructing classrooms, recruiting Community Volunteer Teachers (CVTs), and supporting families through our FBE scheme will form the foundation for the next six months of our EFECT Project. As always, there will be a strong emphasis on sustainability, with the project also focusing on attendance-monitoring and improving student retention rates. This will all be underpinned by the Income Generating Initiatives (IGIs) which we will set up in Liberia and Sierra Leone, an initiative to support schools in the long-term by helping communities grow incomes through the provision of seeds, along with training in crop rotation and harvesting. Vitally, these activities will also ensure that community teachers receive the recognition they deserve.
After this time, the project will continue to progress over the next three years to address all the barriers that are keeping children out of school, to continue to engage these communities and enrol children. As the project Rural Advocacy Officer said about one of the communities:
“I am excited to continue working alongside this community to enable OOSC (out of school children) to enrol into primary education.”