Over 60% of women in Sierra Leone are being beaten and forced to have sex by their intimate male partners. The project aims to address heightened levels of discrimination and violence against women in Sierra Leone and promote coordination for increased success in violence and anti-discrimination campaigns throughout the country.

Creating the education infrastructure needed to make a meaningful difference in the lives of young girls requires a multi prong approach with efforts lasting years, if not decades. Our first priority will be to support girls in Tanzania by providing them with much needed resources to acquire quality education from primary up to university levels. We shall focus on less-privileged girls, especially those in rural areas as they face the greatest challenge in acquiring any form of education. Nearly half (47%) of primary school aged girls are not attending school. Between 2004 and 2010, pregnancy among Tanzanian girls aged 15 to 19 years fell by about 12%. Still, more than 40% of young women begin having children by age 18, and the country has one of the highest adolescent pregnancy rates in the world. Girls in urban areas of Tanzania were eight times more likely to finish secondary education than girls in rural areas.

Youths make up 65% of the population of Sierra Leone and a third of that percentage is unemployed and lack the means to start their own businesses. Through this project, 250 Youths in the country will be equipped with transferable and marketable skills which will give them direct access to long-term career opportunities and improved livelihoods. Economic growth will be supported in key sectors by supplying skilled youths. Also, an enabling environment will be created for youths to help them become self-reliant and contribute to the development of their lives and the nation as a whole.

CHALLANGE: The COVID-19 or Coronavirus crisis has made a tremendous cross-sectoral impact across most of the countries around the world. The entire social, economic, and cultural structure is gradually transforming into an unexpected reality. Poor communities in Sierra Leone have become more vulnerable to the basic issues of livelihood, hunger, housing, and shelter. There are currently over 500 confirmed cases with 33 deaths in the country and the numbers keep rising in an alarming fashion. SOLUTION: Even though we will not be involved in clinically addressing the Coronavirus problem, Advocacy Initiative for Development (AID) Sierra Leone will embark on the following across the country to help stop the spread of COVID-19: 1. Increase community awareness on the prevention and spread of the COVID-19 diseases; 2. Reduce panicking and disinformation caused by the spread of COVID-19 disease and 3. Ensuring the supply of basic resources such as masks, food and shelter to the poorest and the needy LONG-TERM IMPACT: The results and the indicators we expect from the above intervention: - A large number of people will adopt sound sanitation, social distancing, and other safety precautions against the COVID-19 pandemic. - There will be a limited spread of disinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. - A large number of homeless and poor people will have access to food and shelter.

THE CHALLENGE: Sierra Leone is currently off track on meeting the target of halving the percentage of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation. Only 57% of the country's population have access to safe drinking water. 30% of all schools are without running water and 14% of all under 5 child deaths are due to diarrhea and other water related illnesses. Women and girls are particularly affected spending time and energy on water collection on daily basis. OUR SOLUTION AID, through its EMAS Technology adopted a low-cost self water supply concept, providing technical WASH facility implementation as well as training for local WASH technicians. The promoted low-cost Water Self-Supply technologies in Sierra Leone include a wide range of low-cost options such as hand drilled wells, rain water harvesting systems, household water. The presented water self-supply approach follows a do-it-yourself and an added value principal. LONG-TERM IMPACT: AID, through the use of Emmas Technology has been able to construct over 800 wells in various communities in rural areas in Sierra Leone. With the great impacts our intervention is making in addressing the growing water concerns of poor people, we are committed to reaching more communities as clearly articulated in our 2020 vision to reach up to 2,000 communities. AID is also very determined to also implement the Emmas Technological approach to other parts of Africa.

On March 24th, 2021, a terrible fire broke out at one of the densely populated slum communities in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Susan's Bay. The entire community was burnt down to ashes and it is believed that more than 5,000 people were left homeless as over 600 houses were destroyed. Many children are believed to be missing and separated from their parents while thousands have lost their livelihoods as most of the residents in the affected community were involved in petty trading. Advocacy Initiative for Development (AID) Sierra Leone will be providing food, water, medicine, clothing, school supplies, and accommodation in helping the victims especially women and children rise from the ashes. Also, the organization will be providing psychosocial counseling support to affected women and children to enable them recover from the trauma and also keep their hopes alive.

The right to education is regarded as universal, yet across the world children, especially the girl child, continue to be denied their rights to quality education. In Sierra Leone, a gender gap in education is prevalent, especially from secondary school onwards where lower levels of female participation are recorded, due in part to forms of violence and discrimination directed against girls. This situation is in turn perpetuating a vicious cycle of poverty and gender inequality from generation to generation. To combat this, we are reaching out to the world to help accelerate Girls' Education in Sierra Leone.