Empowering Mothers’ Clubs to Empower All Girls
Sierra Leone
Partner - Cause Canada
The Situation
In Sierra Leone there are many communities so rural and remote, there are few or no other NGO or government services. Cause Canada with funds provided by CEF, focused on reaching these extremely hard to reach communities that had the greatest need. In ten targeted communities, 690 girls were identified as being out of school. Many girls drop out of school because of lack of resources, cultural expectations and lack of support.
The Challenge
The program aimed to develop and implement training for Mothers’ Clubs that would help them work together with community stakeholders to identify and help girls who have dropped out of school or are at-risk of leaving school, to go back and stay in school.
The Result
Orientation meetings were held to inform community members of the entire program. Because of this engagement 690 girls were identified and registered by the Mothers’ Club. 230 members participated in training that focused on:
The practical benefits of adolescent girls’ school participation.
The importance of adolescent girls' education and being able to identify girls at-risk of leaving school.
Practices to generate financial resources to send girls to school and keep girls at risk of dropping out of schools.
An additional 30 Mothers’ Clubs also underwent training with 2,754 people (women, students, leaders) indirectly benefiting. The project team carried out 320 monitoring and follow ups visits to support the action plans made by Mothers Clubs. A total of 310 (170 male and 140 female) teachers and community leaders in the 10 communities were trained to work closely with the Mothers’ Clubs to support girls to return to school. In total, 289 girls were supported with funds raised by Mothers’ Clubs to receive school materials and began studying during the 2021-22 school year. In fall of 2022, another 151 girls who had previously dropped out of school will return to school.
An enormous number of girls directly benefited from the project undertaken with the support of CEF. In the school year for 2022-23, CEF continued supporting the Mothers’ Clubs through coaching and business strategies to help encourage the Mothers’ Clubs’ businesses and the savings which ultimately pays for girls’ school fees, especially during this time of extremely high inflation and unrest in Sierra Leone.
CEF is proud to continue its funding and partnership with Cause Canada on this very successful and impactful initiative. With the high number of girls out-of-school, continuing the project support in the current communities and replicating this project into other communities is an excellent opportunity to help increase the number of girls attending and staying school. In September 2023, 601 out-of-school adolescent girls successfully enrolled and were provided with the necessary support to facilitate their return to school.
In 2024, CAUSE Canada, with funding from CEF, began working in 12 communities with women living with disabilities to train them as Champions that work in the community to identify girls living with a disability and support her family to make an action plan to send her to school. At the same time, the project will train Mothers’ Clubs in these new communities however with a greater focus on including women living with disabilities and encouraging them to seek out and support all children to go back to school, especially girls living with a disability who are often kept home and hidden from the community.
