By Millicent Senava Mannah
Caritas Sierra Leone, a Non-Governmental Organization, funded by MANOS UNIDAS has on Tuesday 23rd November, 2021 conducted a Community Engagement with various stakeholders and community people from 12 different communities both in the rural and urban areas. The engagement was geared towards addressing issues related to Sexual and Gender Based Violence in the Western Area. The engagement was held at the Twin Hall in Hastings.
Caritas Freetown Project Manager, Ibrahim Gibson Mansaray, stated that the project is targeting forty communities, twenty from Western Urban and twenty from the Western Rural District, maintaining that the engagement was held to engage Stakeholders, Religious people and forum groups in different communities to address Sexual Gender Based Violence.
He stated that women and girls are suffering from both sexual and gender based violence maintaining that it is too much for society to swallow, stating how the aforementioned project is aimed at giving women and girls better lives.
Ibrahim Gibson Mansaray continued that they want a society that is free from sexual and gender based violence against women and girls, continuing that to implement the project they have partnered with certain organizations and working with Model Ambassadors as well as various groups in different schools they have trained on SGBV.
The Caritas Freetown Project Manager maintained that their role, as an organization, is to complement the efforts of the Government and also partner with parents and guardians who have the responsibility to take care of their children, adding that it is part of their mandate to source funding on behalf of the people and that when they receive funding they partner with the people.
FSU representative, Tamba Kelly, attached to the Rokel Police Post, admonished parents to take care of their girl child and stop giving them to early marriages stating that it will destroy their future, further adding that a single girl child is worth more than ten boys, and if he or she is educated they will not only build their families alone but the nation as a whole.
ASP Christiana Davies-Cole Esq a Model Ambassador of the Project stated that Gender Based Violence is a violation of human rights and it is reflected in international agreements one of which is the Convention on Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Sarran Kabba, another Model Ambassador of the Project, said parents should train their children while they are young so that they will not depart from it, maintaining that as they are yearning for the thirty percent quota, they need more women and girls to rise up and be equipped.
One of the participants, Lovetta Amara, from Allen Town said she has learned a lot from the engagement promising that she will go back to her community and educate her fellow women and girls about what she has learned, advising parents that they need to encourage their girl child stating that such will give them the confidence to speak whenever they are faced with any type of challenge.
