Save the Children is seeking solutions to the challenges faced by children in Sierra Leone through our development and humanitarian work since 1999. We have since reached hundreds of children over the years directly and millions of adults directly and indirectly (Basic Country Information) with our work across Kailahun,Pujehun, Bo, Kenema, Port Loko, Bonthe, Western Urban and Western Rural. In, 2018, we reached over 280,000 children and over 65,000 adults with programming, advocacy and support including emergency preparedness and response to government agencies across multiple sectors within our operational districts. A range of institutional and private donors support our current portfolio.
Our current Country Strategic Plan covers 2022-2024 and sets out our Overall objectives in six core thematic areas:
Health and Nutrition (focus on adolescents and maternal child health)
Education
Child Protection
Child Rights Governance
Food Security and Livelihood
Climate Change
Which Children:
Survive: SC will focus on girls and boys under the age of 5 years, with a special focus on new-borns and infants in the communities and families who are most deprived and vulnerable to public health issues and threats to survival.
Learn: By advocating for improved access to learning SC will aim to reach all girls and boys across Sierra Leone, not only through traditional and formal education but through creative learning environments and tools. Priority will be on getting the most marginalized children (out of school children, street children, child mothers, child-headed households and children from poor households in remote rural areas and urban slum communities) to return to school, stay in school and learn.
Be protected: SC will strive to work with the hidden children in society including those in kinship care or harder to reach communities and slums, out of school children, and those who have been impacted by crisis. SC will protect them by strengthening community protection and safeguarding structures and linking these with more formal protection systems and services. Gender differences related to children’s vulnerability will be explored and integrated into our programming to serve the needs of boys and girls.
Across all programming: through our advocacy and campaigns SC aims to achieve health, education and protection improvements for all children in Sierra Leone, by empowering children and civil society organizations (CSOs) to hold government to account for their provision of essential services.
Which Contexts:
SC in SL is committed to continuing emergency response and support to the government in preventing and containing disasters or crises in the region. .
SC will improve the holistic integration of our projects and activities to ensure that children benefit from a range of interventions and strengthened services that are appropriate to them and not in silos activities. To achieve this, our teams will listen to each community of children individually in order to understand their needs and situations better and provide targeted assistance. SC believes in a full spectrum approach to addresses the rights of children as well the range of phases from emergency through to development.
Our programs will provide a specific focus on hidden children particularly those in urban slum communities and harder to reach communities in our rural and peri-urban districts. These children are often ignored or left off the agenda because they are difficult and costly to reach.
The government of SL has fully recognized Civil Society as a key player in democratic processes, creating a more enabling environment for local organizations to flourish. Major challenges for many CSOs, (including SCI partners) however are their weak internal systems and governance structures as well as their limited technical capacities. SC will focus on capacity strengthening of our core local partners for them to become strong, well-managed organizations that function as change agents
