By Mohamed Bangura
232NEWS, FREETOWN
Community Action to Restore Lives a Non-Governmental Organization geared to empowering women and girls in the western rural area district and other districts in Sierra Leone has held its annual girls conference with the theme “Girls to prevent violence against women and girls at Lumpa community center in the western rural district of Waterloo with support from purposeful under a project titled ” Girls Circle Collection”.
In her statement, the Executive Director of Community Action to Restore Lives, Allia Esther Saxo Decker said the girls conference is part of the commemoration of the 16 days of activism and that it’s only girls from the sixteen communities in the western rural district where they are highlighting the significance of the sixteen days of activism, noting that they are also encouraging the girls to add value on whatever they are doing as to be self-reliance. According to the ED of Carl, Allia Esther Saxo Decker, in the past three years the girls circle collection project has been empowering vulnerable girls in the district. In fulfilling this, the organization has been providing grant to these girls as to start up a business in their respective groups or communities. Madam Decker further noted that of recent, they have provided a sum of fifteen thousand new Leones each for girls in ten communities in the western rural area district as part of their support to girls.
Talking about the organization Madam Decker said since 2011, twelve years ago the organization has reached out to over 15,000 women and girls in the country providing empowerment programs, sexual education, government emergency and recovery programs in the western area rural district and other part of the country. The organization has also built and empowered vulnerable rural women and girls in leadership and mentorship, adult literacy and basic business skills and entrepreneurship among other things.
Ramatu Kargbo is a mentor from Brana town in Waterloo trained by Carl in her remarks focused on the issue early marriage, teenage pregnancy and domestic violence against women and girls. She said as girls they should not allow themselves into these vices as this will hinder their future. She went further to encourage her compatriots to focus on their studies and report any case of domestic violence against women and girls to the authorities concerned. During the conference some girls shared their testimony on the transformative work Carl and purposeful had done in their lives.
