By Foday Moriba Conteh
On the 17th October 2019, the Foundation for Gender and Development Initiative (FGDI-SL) and SAVE Sierra Leone collaborated with other Civil Societies in the East End of Freetown at the FGDI-SL office 51 Bai Bureh Roads Kissy, Freetown to form a Coalition.
The meeting was geared towards getting the views from other CSO’s as to the need for an umbrella organization that will be regulating and coordinating the activities of CSO’s in that part of the country. It is to enhance better relationship amongst CSO’s in terms of their visibility, credibility and acceptability. A total number of 33 attendees from various CSO’s showed solidarity and support for the unprecedented idea of having a coalition for all civil society organizations in the East of Freetown.
When established, the coalition aims to provide capacity for CSO’s in implementing projects and producing standard results, Fostering sustainable relationship with line ministries for easy execution of their work, Provide capacity building, partnership and other necessary support for its membership and proffer the much needed solution to the burning issues faced in the different communities.
It is evident that Eastern Freetown is densely populated and thus faced with enormous challenges which include but not limited to sexual and reproductive health issue amongst women and girls, poor health and water facility, barriers with women due to gender disparity, economic crises, high rate of violence and crime rate, drug and substance abuse etc… It is against this backdrop that the thematic focus was to discuss the establishment of a consortium for all civil society organizations in the East End for addressing issues like:
Empowerment of women and girls to break barriers of gender disparity through support of women and girls in their involvement in economic, political and social activities in Sierra Leone, addressing issues of sexual and reproductive health and right which is in line with the SDG 3, 5 and 10, Addressing issues of drug and substance abuse, violence and high crime rate in Eastern Freetown and by extension Sierra Leone.
The meeting ended up with a move to set up a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between FGDI-SL which is the lead organization and other CSO’s in the coalition. Other intending member Organizations must produce all legal documentations as to its legitimacy of operation at the second meeting of the coalition in order to be considered for it membership.
