Submitted
2024 Global Learning Challenge

Empowering Defenseless children for Education

Team Leader
SINNEH LAHAI SEN SESAY
Solution Overview & Team Lead Details
Our Organization
Discourage Youths From Poverty
What is the name of your solution?
Empowering Defenseless children for Education
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
Empowering defenseless children for Education through access, empowerment community involvement,,support service,technology,and learning initiative.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Freetown, Sierra Leone
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
  • Sierra Leone
What type of organization is your solution team?
  • Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?

In Sierra Leone Children between the ages of seven years and fourteen years face significant and marginalization within their communities as they lack equal opportunities for school learning materials and tuition fees hindering their access to quality education.To address these issues, we have initiated a project focusing on the interests of these children, particularly girls to bridge the persistent gaps in education. One of the main challenges is the insufficient number of schools with comforts classrooms which lead parents to choose not to enroll girls and this had cause a stigma and barriers for the children mostly the the girls rights to access a better education. Shockingly 1 in 4 girls are deprived in most of this six districts and the data recorded from our fact finding over 25, 000 girls drop out from schools at the ages of 10 years to 17 years because lack the financial to support them. And this 25 ,000 girls 50% of this girls abandon their parent and communities and many of are force to marriage, 15% goes through the stigma of unwanted pregnancy, 10% joined bad peer groups which most of them involved in drugs crimes. In response to these as an organization our project aims to support 5,600 children both 30% of boys and 70% of girls across the four districts as identify as follows Port Loko District, Bombali District, Karene District, and Waterloo Peninsular District and of 20 communities we identified 35 communities Primary schools to address these issues.

CHALLENGES BREAKDOWN

  • 3000 Girls marginalized ignore their right to enroll in school and neglecting their right to education at the four districts.
  • 2000 children are attending in their respect community school but they lack the necessary learning school materials and 50% of this children do not have proper uniforms impacting their access to quality education.
  • 100 Girls had experiences unwanted pregnancies but express desire to back to school if they giving support.
  • 500 children have physically disabilities they were neglected and consider them less and uphold their right to education  from their parents and communities.


 PROBLEM

  • Many children attend school without the learning schools materials like pens,pencil, books, text books, school bags, water Jug, uniforms and shoes.
  • The children went to school on long distance on barefoot and late to be in classrooms
  • the breakfast for this children is limited as cool sleep rice for this children impacting their ability to focus and learn.
  • Carrying books on bare hands this cause sweating of hands and books damaged.
  • Girls are often deprived of education due to the challenges imposed by the parents and communities.
  • Cultural societal norms create barriers for girls to access schools.
  • Girls choice and right to make their decision were ignore by parents and communities.

GLOBAL STATISTICS 

Globally 250 million children are out of school with many more lacking proper school learning material and the financial powers and the infrastructure of school are disable for the children around the world today. 




What is your solution?

The educational reintegration Project addressing the solution plight of 30 ladies at the ages 15 years and 18 years in the urban city of Freetown Bay communities who have left their families long years.Through research in the urban communities we identified thirty young ladies and many of whom were living in a vulnerable conditions among peer group. This project specifically target the thirty ladies and by the interaction they share their stories and told us where they came from and why they decided to abandon their parents and communities. By knowing the  where they came this are districs with the highest of poverty from the districts Karene District Bombali District and Port Loko District. This ladies abandon their parents and communities for for good numbers of years fighting for themselves. After we heard each of their story we decided to finds ways how we can support them. 

What is it?

The project aims to reintegrate these girls back into the educational system, providing them with the necessary support to continue their schooling. This includes covering their tuition fees and supplying essential school material.

What does it do?

  • Reintegration into Education project re-enrolls these girls, who had previously dropped out, back into schools and provides them with the opportunity to continue their education, which they are eager to embrace

What does it do?

  1. Reintegration into Education: The project re-enrolls these girls, who had previously dropped out, back into schools. We provides them with the opportunity to continue their education, which they are eager to embrace.

  2. As a team we work to reunite these  thirty young ladies with their families and communities and this not only provides them with support system but also help them reintegrate into their diverse society.

  3. We cover all the tuition fees for these thirty young ladies and provide them with essential school learning supplies and this ensures they have everything they need to succeed academically.

How its works

  1. We identify to solve the problem through a research as we identified the thirty girls in the urban city of Freetown living in vulnerable hard conditions and away from their families. We made contact them individually to understand their stories and needs.
  2. Based on our agreed decision and understanding their conditions we decided to support them and reintegrated then into the educational schooling system.
  3. We provided and supplies these thirty young ladies with the necessary school supplies such as books, uniforms, bags, and other school learning materials and covered all the tuition fees to ensure they can attend school without financial burden.

Technology Used

  1. We does our communication through mobiles phones and messages services to stay in touch with the thirty young ladies and their families and providing updates and supports.
  2. We created a database which is utilized to track the progress of each girl including attendance, academic performance and needful.


Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

We targets a population of children consist of vulnerable and marginalisation in the four districts of the country and specifically we aims at the ages of  7 years to 14years within the trends amount of 5,600 vulnerable children that had deprived from not going or enroll into the primary school especially the girls. And we targets the children that ages from 11 to14 years this are those been dropped out from primary schools and trying to bring them back to schools and providing them the necessary school learning materials support and  help thousands of children to have the opportunity to re-enroll back to the different communities school learning. We also target mostly the girls that have face significant challenges including lack of support for their education those are among the 5,600 vulnerable children that we identify  been force to live in precarious conditions among peers group and ultimately dropping out from schools. The project identified these children who are often overlooked and undeserved by existing educational systems and support to improve the schools structure in every of this districts and communities. These children are from the ages of 7 years and good number of this children are girls and they stay with their mother to care for them and no father. This had cause a stigma of these mother living in low income at which has affected the children reaching the age to be enrolled in most this schools communities is a big challenge. Also we targets the ages 11 to 14 years children has dropped out from school because of the lacking financial support from the  families. Most of the dropped out from school especially the girls encounter men forcing them which cause many girls been encounter unwanted pregnancies  at an underage  They are eager wanted to re-enroll if they are supported with the necessary school learning materials. This vulnerable children currently undeserved and denied the basic rights to education and lacking the necessary financial, school learning materials support. 

Also risk of exploitation as this vulnerable children live under vulnerable conditions at risk including early marriage, unwarranted pregnancies and involvement in harmful activities. 

The project targets to support 5,600 vulnerable children and support the empowerment potential needs that covers the essential school learning materials and breaking the cycle of poverty through financial support for education. 

We are helping the abandon girls to reunite into their families and in their different communities and equipped them changes power to better life.

We targets to collaborate with our communities and the parents by raises awareness about the importance of sending children to schools and right to education.Our solutions aim to empowered the 5,600 children mostly the girls, and the project is a holistic approach to transform the lives of vulnerable boys and girls in the four districts. By providing the empowerment potential needs of education we aims to break the cycle of educational blockage and poverty and provide the needful power to transform their lives.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

Our team is uniquely positioned to delivered the Bridging the Gap solution due to our collective expertise and experience and going depth understanding the challenges the girls are facing by marginalized communities and that why we take the bold step to design the using the model of Growth to the solution. 

Diverse Backgrounds: as a team we have voluntary teams that we aim to employee voluntary with potential experiences were we involved all community organizers social works and those that will dealt with gender equality. And this voluntary team brings out a unique perspective and efficiency by providing a comprehensive approach.

Educational Sector Experience: The team has a wealthy experience by working to make a change and transform the educational challenges for the girls. 

Advocate for girls gender equality As a team we are passionate to advocate for the girls in the based of equal rights and girls right to their choices and involve for them to participate in various initiatives by promoting girls rights. Our commitment towards this will drive our determination to create meaningful change.

Strengthen collaboration and engagement with communities: The important as team to collaborate will strengthen the close and regular decision making process  together with our community stakeholders to build development and change by building a stronger trust within the communities.

The team project growth design will closely work with communities by guiding them how their information ideas should be guided with those communities we served. Moreover the team guide the interaction assessment through a point of collaboration by listens to their concerns, decision making that bring a change, their challenges and aspiration regarding educational access and right for girls to be educated. Organizing community meeting and workshop with our leaders, parents teachers and girls that are going the stigma of education. The feedback that is coming out from our community stakeholders will be strongly guided for the developmental change to bring transformation for every child. 

We aim to established local partnership with local community organizations and leaders who we work with to bring sustainability relating to educational trends. Also ensure the efforts to respect cultural sensitive and aligned with the community values and priorities.

Our approach is not about imposing solutions but empowering communities to be active participants in the process centered to clean of the challenges that has affecting the girls and ensure that our solution are sustainable and embraced by the communities.

Our team diverse our responsibilities to empowered the girls education so the outcome of this process will transform the girls access to learning schools items good structures of schools which has comfortable schools chairs and benches, and also what it takes for the effective running of the schools and the girls will get an effective learning school environment. As team and the efficiency engagement with the community makes us rightly to design and delivered the Bridging the Gap solution.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
  • Ensure that all children are learning in good educational environments, particularly those affected by poverty or displacement.
Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
  • 4. Quality Education
  • 5. Gender Equality
  • 10. Reduced Inequalities
  • 17. Partnerships for the Goals
What is your solution’s stage of development?
  • Growth
Please share details about why you selected the stage above.

We have built our stage on our Educational Reintegration Project through addressing the plight of the thirty young ladies who abandoned their respective parents  and communities for lacking the financial support for thier  school learning education. Through our effective research we identified this thirty girls with different ages by meeting them living in vulnerability conditions among peers group. This thirty young girls successfully gained the opportunity to integrated in back re-enroll into the different communities school, we located them. Also we we does a community Reintegration by uniting thirty young girls with their families in the two district and we created a supportive environment for the thirty young girls to grow and enjoy the opportunities to go back to schools. 

Why are you applying to Solve?

We are applying to solve the problem of educational challenges that are facing by the children in communities because we believe in the power of collaboration ideas to address complex changes. Our team will provide a unique platform ways to connect with partners who can provide the necessary support to scale our Growth project and Bridging the Gab to solve the challenges the vulnerable children are facing. As a team we can provide access to a network to our partners, stakeholders, donors, national cooperate organizations, Private institutions, individual and communities as we going to engaged by sharing the idea of project aims and objectives through the influence of our project we can asked for support us financially and non-financially.  

We are going to used our expertise and guidance to help refine and strengthen our solution and support us by navigate our challenges and optimized our approach for an effective success. While we are passionate about our mission and have a dedicated team who knows the several blockage barriers that has Bridge the Gap for the children to be educated. We can put our resources to help overcome this blockage and barriers that caused the stigma of the lives of children an parents which caused the marginalization of girls in communities. We going lay practical decision with our stakeholders and communities to bring a stop on them so the children can acquire the necessary school learning materials for the vulnerable children  access a quality educational into this communities schools in their different respective communities rural areas an improvement of the different schools infrastructure. We are committed and determined to make a change that why we are applying to solve the problem and change over to transformation because we believed in the power of collaboration and the impact. Which our advancing solutions and as team we can mobilizes our resources capability. As we are confident that the scale Bridging the Gap solution makes a meaningful difference in the lives of the children mostly the girls in marginalized communities creating a more inclusive and equitable future for all the girls.


In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
  • Financial (e.g. accounting practices, pitching to investors)
  • Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Sinneh Lahai Sen Sesay
More About Your Solution
Your Team
Your Business Model & Funding
Solution Team:
SINNEH LAHAI SEN SESAY
SINNEH LAHAI SEN SESAY
Executive Director