My name is Eric Kallon. I am the Chief Executive Officer of Foundation for Children, Youth and women’s Empowerment Sierra Leone.
Foundation for Children, Youths and Women’s’ Empowerment Sierra Leone (FOYWE-SL) is a registered non-governmental and Non-profit making organisation that operates in Sierra Leone. Our aim is to advocate on behalf of the less privileged children, Youths, and Women in the society, eliminating the poverty cycle and ignorance, peace and reconciliation and to enhance the quality of life through a structural approach and advocacy programmes that can offer opportunities for children and young people’s development. One of our objectives as an organisation is education. We believe education is the most lasting and effective way we can help children, the youth and their families to escape from the cycle of poverty. It also represents a double investment in the children but also an investment in the future of our great nation Sierra Leone.
Our purpose as an organisation is to promote the welfare of education for children in the society, creating a forum for peace and reconciliation and to assist the disadvantaged and marginalised in connection with issues affecting their wellbeing, social service support, advocacy, self-reliance, human resource capacity building, gender based violence prevention, quality education service delivery or other areas of need when necessary.
Our mission is to reach out to the most vulnerably marginalised, abused, exploited and disadvantaged children and youth, for their emancipation and sustained integral development through enabling, participatory and rights-based approach programs. We uphold the equal respect for human rights, freedoms and human dignity in our communities.
In Sierra Leone, 63% of people are food insecure and 31% of children under five years old suffer from chronic malnutrition. In addition, 81% of the population does not have access to water facilities for hand washing with soap and water at home. It is also estimated that there are 450,000 disabled people in Sierra Leone, common disability issues include blindness, deafness, war wounded including amputees and polio. Disabled people are large minority groups starved of services and mostly ignored by society, live in isolation poverty, segregation, and even pity.
Foundation for children, Youth and Women’s Empowerment Sierra Leone works to strengthen food security, livelihood programs and to provide education for the disabled.
Our first undertaken project for the disabled was to provide access to education for the blind. In May 2021, we provided brailed machine, typewriter, and learning materials to the Paul School for the Blind in Bo city. This is major equipment that was needed by the school. Our community based organisation was assisted by community health systems and services in Sierra Leone. In 2020, we set up a program focused on strengthening the prevention and management of malnutrition in Sembehun Kokofele. This program includes the improvement of nutrition knowledge and practices among caregivers, adolescents, pregnant women, and nursing mothers, through training, awareness, and participation in cooking sessions.
In response to the pandemic, we participated in a rapid response project that helped to reduce Covid-19 morbidity and mortality in 12 peripheral health units. We installed two emergency water kiosks and helped in sensitising the communities about COVID-19 and we supplied more Veronica buckets to schools for hand washing and teach the communities the prevention against the deadly virus. Our Youth Ambassadors, staff and volunteers were deployed in 16 communities where they can help the community people in raising awareness in a street to street sensitisation. These staff and ambassadors were well trained and qualified to carry this process.
Foundation for Children youth and women’s empowerment Sierra Leone food security and livelihoods programs tackles the root causes of hunger by addressing problems of production, access, and income. Encompassing a wide array of activities customised to meet a community’s specific needs, our programs are designed to bolster agricultural production, jumpstart local market activity, support micro-enterprise initiatives and otherwise enhance a vulnerable community’s access to sustainable sources of food and income.
Due to the high rate of poverty in Sierra Leone, our organisation has introduced a sustainable development program for women, titled SELF RELIANCE. The organisation provided 33,000,000 (THIRTY THREE MILLION LEONES/ $2560 US) to thirty three market women to boost their businesses to become self-sufficient and to provide for their children. This income was purely for the less privileged and widowed.
As part of our livelihood programs in reducing poverty in Sierra Leone, our organisation implemented Cassava faming in Bo District at Sembehun Kokofele Village. The purpose of this project is to process the cassava into Garri to support the less privileged homes and to supply poor farmers the cassava stem to boost their agricultural production.
