SlumAid In Collaboration With We Yone Child Foundation Donate 40 Bicycles To Boost Education In Rural Karene Kamakwie.

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Last updated: 2021/03/23 at 9:21 AM

By Sallu Kamuskay Published March 23, 2021 339 Views 7 Min Read

7 Min Read

For pupils, especially girls living in rural areas, class completion remains scarce with high dropout rates and consistently low enrollment in secondary school. Early pregnancy, gender-based violence, child marriage, and cultural biases propagate the cycle of gender inequality. Sierra Leone has one of the world’s highest adolescent pregnancy rates, a phenomenon that is largely responsible for the high dropout rate among girls. Girls in Sierra Leone often get married as early as age 11, and more than 60 percent of girls throughout the country are married before the age of 18. Early marriage further hinders these girls’ abilities to pursue an education and gain independence

We Yone Child Foundation

In Sierra Leone, rural communities in particular face significant barriers to education for their children: children spent about four to five miles walking on the road from their houses to the schools, by the time they arrived at their schools, they become tired and loses concentration in class. For some girls who can’t manage these challenges, they will end up giving their bodies, sex for Okada riders to take them to school, hereby killing their future.

We Yone Child foundation is a not-for-profit organization registered in Sierra Leone. They improve the lives of vulnerable children and their families in Sierra Leone through quality education and life empowering opportunities. After a recent survey, they conducted in Kamabonko village on parents and children on the challenges they face to access education. They complain of walking miles away to and from schools. They told the organization that they sometimes lose concentration due to fatigue after walking miles away to and from school, thereby lack the urge to study after school, thus leading to poor performance in class and attendance in school.

We Yone Child Foundation slum Aid — We Yone Child Foundation and it Partner Slum Aid Donate 40 bicycles to children in rural areas

We Yone Child Foundation with its partner, Slum Aid came in to support the children by providing bicycles for the children. This, according to them is to ease the access to education and minimize the rate of children and young people engaging in sex for education.

The founder and director of the organization, Mr. Santigie Bayoh encourages the children to use the bike right away and reminded them that it is a bicycle library project means that the bikes will be used by the first badge of children and later hand it over to the library after they complete their senior secondary school “ the need for this bicycle liberary project is to easy the access to edyucatio and improve on the grades of the students, over the years, we have heard of money complains by the pupils and their parents that they work miles away to go to school, and some of them end up giving their bodies for okada riders, so we are bringing this library in the school to ensure that we minimize the risk of teenage pregnancy and also increase the attendance in class” The founder told Salone Messenger

Santigie Bayo Dumbuya We Yone Child Foundation — Founder and Director Santigie Bayo Dumbuya handing over one of the bicycle to the beneficiary

The Chiefdom Speaker – Karene District Headquarter Kamakwie Mr. Momodu James (MJ) Kamara thank the foundation for the support. “I am very happy for this library project, on behalf of the Paramount Chief, and the entire chiefdom, we want to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to the organization and it partners for supporting these communities, they children are indeed in need of this as they are coming from far distance to schools” He said

The chairperson of the event, Mr. Amara Shengbe who is the Education, Outreach Child & Protection Officer for the We yone foundation encourages the children to take good care of the bike and call on other organizations to think about supporting children living in these deprived rural communities.

“no child or parent have the right to hand over the bike to anyone, it is not your personal property only the library have the mandate to hand over the bicycles to the other set of children after the current pupils’ graduates from schools, I am calling on more partners to join us in supporting these children as they are need of these bicycles.” He told Salone Messenger while stressing that the bicycles should be used for the intended purpose.

Mr. Ibrahim Sieh Tarawalie from the ministry of education, Kamakwei thank the foundation for supporting the communities and cited the support the foundation did in making the ministry office accessible for the disabled. “ I am so happy to witness this program today, indeed, this is not the first time the We Yone Child Foundation is supporting the rural communities and most especially vulnerable people, this foundation helped the ministry to ensure that it has access for disabled, he has been such good person into us, we want to thank the foundation for continuing to demonstrating their love and support”

Beneficiaries after receiving the bicycles thank the foundation and talked about the challenges they had faced going to school.

“ I walk over 4 miles every day to go a school, I get tired to the point that when I return home, I am unable to study, I am happy and want to thank the foundation for supporting me with this bicycle,” one of the beneficiaries told Salone Messenger during an interview with her.

Kamakwie we yone child foundation

TAGGED: Kamakwie, Salone Messenger, Santigie Bayo Dumbuya, SlumAid UK, We Yone Child Foundation

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By Sallu Kamuskay

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Sallu Kamuskay is a Sierra Leonean communication strategist, fixer, blogger, youth organiser, event manager, spokesperson, and public relations expert. His work has been regularly referenced and published by national and international media and public policy institutions. Sallu Kamuskay was a child during the brutal war in Sierra Leone. Growing up in the midst of conflict, Sallu witnessed unimaginable abuse of children and gross violations of human rights. The horrors he witnessed during the Civil War had a terrible impact on him at a very tender age. But despite the shock of the war, Sallu never lost hope. He started on a journey of recovery, studying, and working for a better future. At age 15, Sallu entered into the world of activism and advocacy. Sallu Kamuskay was the Vice President of the Young Leaders Organisation, a member of the National Youth Council. The Young Leaders is one of the oldest youth-led organisations in West Africa. The organisation was formed by a group of young leaders, and launched by the then Head of State/President of Sierra Leone. Sallu was part of the group of young leaders who participated in and contributed to the establishment of the National Youth Council. The Commonwealth supported the training for trainers programme with line ministries and youth stakeholders in which key, representatives of youth council, student union and civil society/private sector youth platforms were engaged and empowered in the effective engagement and inclusion of youth. Sallu is co-founder and Executive Director of the Salone Messenger, a global multimedia and public relations firm based In Sierra Leone. Sallu has worked on various developmental and policy issues such as Poverty, Climate Change, Human rights, Child Rights, Education, Health, Gender Equality, Civic Engagement, Government policies, Information Communication Technology for Development and the Sustainable Development Goals, and has also been contributing to various global events and advocacy campaigns. Sallu Kamuskay is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Salone Messenger, a global Multimedia and Public Relations Firm based in Sierra Leone with the latest news and information, on top stories, business, politics, entertainment, and more. Sallu is working with a leading technology company in Africa, Techfrica, that has recently developed and launched a social media, messaging Supfrica with over 150,000 downloads on the Google play store in less than 4 days. He is the Adviser and Media coordinator for the App to give people the platform to connect and communicate to help shape their future with a very fast internet that allows users that live in deprived and hard-to-reach areas with poor internet facility to be able to communicate as it allows and stronger on 2 and 3 G network reception. Sallu has over 9 years of experience in youth engagement, inclusion, and coordination both at local and global levels, giving voice to young people and engaging young people to build a better world. He has served as coordinator for the Wave Alliance which brought together youth-led organisations who attended an international training in South Africa organized by the International Organization – Waves for Change. Sallu is working with the MLT, Waves For Change, and the Government to develop safe spaces for young people, with a view to contributing to the overall development goals of young people including health, as well as to community rebuilding. Sallu is currently the Programme Director for the Wave Alliance, which is a coalition of youth-led and community-based organisations that have successfully introduced evidence-based Surf Therapy programs to young people in communities, with a focus on mental health, peace building and sustainable development. Sallu is currently the focal point and face of Africa’s Faces Social media platform which is a global Social media platform that brings together people from across the world to share their moments, connect, share videos, and interact with friends giving more preference to excluded continents like Africa. Sallu Kamuskay has devoted his time to working for or contributing to a number of national and international organizations and companies, including the Techfrica Technology Company, United Nations, ECOWAS, European Union, Commonwealth Africa Initiatives. This work has led him to travel to a number of countries to contribute to global youth platforms. Sallu is the lead Coordinator for Peace Tour programme, an initiative supported by the European Union, Africa Union, ECOWAS focusing on uniting and empowering young people and local communities. Over the years, Sallu Kamuskay has been using his Techno phone to be able to tell stories, the phone he used to tell the story of Gbessay during Ebola who was admitted at one of the Ebola treatment centers after rumors that she had Ebola when the actual sickness was ulcer, she was almost abandoned at the treatment canter with no medication provided to her. She could have died. Sallu told the story via social media and was able to secure funding from the United Sierra Leone to buy her medication and advocated for her. She was later discharged and taken home, He did the same to a patient that died and was abandoned in the street, Sallu Kamuskay used his phone and shared the message across, the corps was later taken and buried. It could have been more disaster without his voice. The story of late America Stress 3-year-old daughter. The hero’s daughter was abandon after his father's death. He shared her sad story and was able to get a sister who has taken the child as her own and is currently providing her with educational support. The article of America Stress can be read on the link below http://ayvnewspaper.com/index.php/k2-categories/item/7350-america-stress-a-hero-to-recognize. Sallu Kamuskay feels the stories of Gbessay, America stress and that of many others need to be told. The media house we have cannot better tell these stories, they are better reporters than telling human interest stories. He created the Salone Messenger platform and brought together passionate storytellers to be able to tell these compelling stories.