Fourty six(46) female farmers and four (4) male farmers benefited the emerging improved agricultural techniques that will enhance their farming yield.....
Backgrounds Achievement
• Saint Anthony Girls Primary School Main Motor Road, Brookfields, • Saint Anthony Boys Primary School –Syke Street, Brookfields –Freetown. ...
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Each year on 12 June, the World Day brings together governments, employers and workers organizations, civil society, as well as millions of people from around the world to highlight the plight of child labourers and what can be done to help them.
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Caritas Freetown projects
Photos
Serabu Hospital Project
Which was badly affected during Sierra Leone’s decade long civil war, is once more set to rekindle its glory and hope for the people in the South and to capture the whole country. The once dilapidated hospital situated in the Bumpeh Chiefdom, 35 miles away from Bo city, south of the country, was recently rehabilitated with funds provided by the European Union. The project runs the Serabu Hospital for three years covering the following areas:
Life Skills Project
The project provides life skills education for schools using the Window of Hope Manuals for Primary and secondary school. Acquiring skills, improving lives: Life skills education for Sierra Leonean primary and secondary school children.
Sierra Leonean youth are plagued by high rates of early pregnancy, HIV infection, sexual violence, and violent response to conflict. The proposed project is a follow on and scaling up of a pilot project that addresses the issues in three strategic ways. The first is for children to have developed new life skills and to create an enabling environment for behaviour change in order to make positive life decisions. The second works with parents and community members to create an enabling environment in which children are supported to exercise their new life skills. The third engages decision-makers at the district level to support and advocate on behalf of children’s development of life skills and protection in their community.
HIV/ AIDS Project
The project targets 10,000 youth within the City centers of Bo and Freetown. Currently with the highest prevalence of HIV/ AIDS, through (a) recreational, (b) educational, and (c) outreach activities
PRI -SCHOOL PROGRAM
The objective was to facilitate the education of 200 extremely vulnerable children (6 – 14 years) currently living in urban slums in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The goal of the project is to contribute to Government’s effort in achieving millennium development goal # 2 (achieve universal primary education), and millennium development goal # 3 (promote gender equality).The project provided pre-school education in a decentralized form in each diocese, but under a central coordination office attached to ADDO. Individual implementation is done at Diocesan level, but ADDO is responsible for collating data and presenting report to donor Caritas Germany. The workshops were a very big success, in providing training in human rights, HIV and AIDS, Reproductive Health, Health and Sanitation and Gender Justice. The change in the personality and behavior of the 100 participants is hugely impressive
Sexual and Gender Based Violence Project
The project targets 40 schools in the Western Area Rural District, and 30 schools in the Western Area Urban District by educating teachers, parents, and students on the dangers of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV), how to prevent it and institute mechanisms to response to gross cases of SGBV and establish referral pathways.
Vocational Skills Training Project
The project targets 150 war affected and HIV/AIDS infected and affected women and girls in and around Bo, through medical, psychosocial and financial assistance
Catholic Women Association Project (CWA)
The project aims to assist CWA women in employment creation in: (a) FISHNG at the Juba Parish, and (b) VEGETABLE, and PIGGERY at the Waterloo Parish
Cash for Work Project
The project created quick employment for 750 Marginalized youth in Grafton, Jui, and Waterloo communities respectively, by providing food and cash for work in (a) feeder road construction, (b) tree planting, and(c) compose peat construction
Youth Readiness Intervention Project:
This is a mental health project that has two focuses: The Clinical Facilitation aspect, providing risk of harm and psychological healing for young people and a Research aspect which seeks to record issues of trauma, anxiety, stress and risky thoughts among young people. In 2012, the project prepared 128 youths who were enrolled into academic schools (EDUCAID) after a successful completion of the Youth Readiness program
Intergenerational Impact of the War/ Early Childhood Education and Participant Retention Project:
This is a research project with support from the Harvard University Centre for Developing Child. It is focused at finding out the impact of the war on the lives of children of those who were involved in conflict and introduction of new pre-school mentoring skills. It is specifically focus at recording the life styles, family pattern and attitude of people who were involved in the conflict towards their partners and siblings.
In 2012, we were able to complete part of the research target which fed into the design and acted as foundation for the development of a comprehensive study titled R01 that is slated to start in March 2013. The project continues and number of key informant interviews are being conducted. By mid 2014, the project will specifically focused at the actual longitudinal studies.
Engaging Electors for a peaceful, free and fair 2012 elections Project:
This project is geared towards engagement and participation of women and young people in electoral processes for transparency and credibility. It promotes non-violence communication and teaches conflict handling mechanisms. This project was very useful in providing platform for the constructive engagement of aspiring politicians from the various political parties within the targeted constituencies and their subjects (particularly women and youth). Comprehensively, the project activities contributed to the peaceful conduct of the November 2012 pools and post elections engagement to ensure that the winners take all mentality is addressed. The project was officially concluded in September 2013.
Fatima House of light Project:
The project is geared towards training and employment creation for seventy eight (78) vulnerable women and girls within the Cline Town Community, most of which are ex-street girls and teenage mothers and “bush wives”. The Fatima House of light was initially launched in 2010 with support from Missio and in 2012 was upgraded with support from Healey International Relief Foundation by paying the course fees of the beneficiaries and provision of valuable start up kits to enhance their employability immediately they are completing their courses. The project trained 20 hairdressers, 20 caterers, 3 secretaries, 30 nursing aides and 5 auto mechanics. Currently good number of the girls is being employed both privately and in established institutions. The three secretariat students are currently attached at the Office of the Chief Justice of the Republic of Sierra Leone.
Disabled Street Children and Youth Project:
This project provides training opportunity for disabled street children and youths who were hanging in the streets of Freetown in performing arts and playing of live musical instruments. In 2012, we were able to complete the writing and recording of a musical audio album and established a band group out of the project, The group name now is Sierra Leone Disabled Band, Currently the band is at the verge of completing the practice of live performance of their album, the musical album was launched in August and the band continues to function, though the project has come to successful completion. CORDAID has been approached to support Caritas Freetown to do advocacy on the Disability act 2012, which will serve as an engagement of the Sierra Leone Disabled Band.
Summary of projects carried out by the Justice and Peace commission
The Justice and Peace commission‘s key goal is to ensure a just society and peaceful co-existence which are key pillars of nations building and development. Practically, resolving disputes and ensuring a peaceful resolution and protection of beneficiaries/target communities is a crucial aspect of the operations of the commission.
Within the period under review the commission has been able to accomplished the following :Handle cases that are in court hold several community meetings with tribal heads, mammy Queens, Councilors, Youth Leaders, Women’s Leaders were conducted in some of the targeted communities which includes , Leicester, Regent and Funkia. This meeting achieved its goal as it was able to highlight the roles of traditional leaders as stipulated in the Local Court Act 2011.
Also a key role that was emphasized and achieved by the commission is to ensure that traditional authorities understands their role as mediators, and why it is important for them to constantly engage in mediationAlso the commission was able to train and establish Community Justice Champions (CJC) in 13 communities. Equally so trainings were carried out for the Community Justice Champions in documentation, conflict resolution and mediation. This is to enhance their roles and collaboration with JPC in reducing domestic violence, child abuse and other justice related issues.
The commission established mobile clinics, which are held on every Friday in each of the field offices. The clinics are to allow more community participation and to identify community problems and find solution to those problems, for example; a community center built in Bathurst by NaCSA but has no toilet. Justice and Peace commission was able to make visits on behalf of the community to NaCSA and a toilet was constructed beside the community center.
Owing to the enormous social problems that Caritas Freetown and the Justice and Peace commission has identified, the commission has been involved in a broad range of mass education and raising awareness on the gender laws of sierra Leone, the Sexual offences act, the convention on the right of the child and many more and the participants list has covered local authorities, traditional authorities, the police, other civil society organizations, youth groups, women groups, in and out of school programs.
The peace building project was funded by Missio and key activities that it focused on were essentially on building network and structures for peace education and building community resilience and on avoiding chaotic and violence disputes. It ended in January 2013 and Missio was approached to fund the continuation of the project.
major achievement worth mentioning that the justice and peace commission was able to accomplish was to establish peace between the St. Edwards Secondary and it allies and the Sierra Leone Police Force, The commission was able to create a platform and established a common ground where the dialogue between the students and the police was able to reach conclusion and eventually got the Sierra Leone Police to send some of its personnel to physically help the school authority in the construction of their school wall fence and a big football match was organized to climax the peace deal.
- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),
- CORDAID,
- Justice Sector Development Program (JSDP) ,
- FBX Centre for Human Rights and mental Health,
- United Nations Integrated Peace building office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSL),
- ENCISS,
- Kindermissiowerk ,
- AGEH- Germany ,
- Open Society Justice Initiative,
- Milton Funds,
- NAMATI ,
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- Access to Security and Justice Project (ASJP).
National Ministries :-
Ministry of Social Welfare,- Gender and Children’s Affairs;
- Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security;
- Ministry of Education Science and Technology,
- Ministry of Youth and Sports,
- Ministry of Health and Sanitation,
- Ministry Internal Affairs and others.
