Education awareness and sensitization of local people and all stakeholders to ensure they understand the advantages and benefits of women's education is a crucial subject in the development equation world wide. In Sierra Leone, the campaign for female education has been taking a progressive trend with NGOs working side by side with government to implement projects and programs to realize the objectives of bringing gender on the agenda of national and international development. Invariably, relationship building through a continuous process of dialogue to create trust between and among various stakeholders is also very important in meeting MDG 3 for Sierra Leone.
In order to accomplish this, participation of all stakeholders, including empowerment groups in communities must take responsibility to educate girl children. Incidentally, this goal is a corner stone of Khadarlis vision for Sierra Leone. In this regard, Khadarlis for Sierra Leone is deeply involved with resuscitating and sustaining the academic programs already set in motion for the only Girls Secondary School in Jimmi, the chiefdom headquarter of Bagbo chiefdom in Bo District, Southern Sierra Leone. Jimmi has a Government supported Boys Secondary School founded in 1923, which Khadarlis has been helping over the past couple of years. The Girls Junior Secondary School was founded in 2003 towards the close of the civil war when Liberian refugees were settled in Jimmi for over 7 years and the need for the education of girls became indispensable.
However after the war, these refugees were repatriated even though a handful of them decided to stay in Jimmi for obvious reasons. It is unfortunate that support by International partners such as UNHCR, World Vision and a couple of others have not been active enough in support of the school, and as a result of that, the school is at the brink of collapse and that will not be a good signal for the progress made so far in girl child education for that region. That is the more reason why Khadarlis for Sierra Leone is championing the cause of ensuring that a school for girls education in areas where Khadarlis is operating remains up and running in fulfillment of moving forward with the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs)
A flexible and adaptable process in the face of the prevailing social perception of the education of girls in disadvantaged communities like Jimmi in Southern Sierra Leone requires the participation and collaboration of grass root organizations like Khadarlis for Sierra Leone with its international connections and strategic partnerships, the stage has been set to advance female education and gender equality in Southern Sierra Leone with Khadarlis as a formidable bridge.
According to the MDG Progress Report 2010, Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women (MDG3) remains an illusion that all development partners would continue to work around to bring it into reality even beyond 2015. "This goal will not be met. Near gender balance has been achieved in gross primary enrollment, but with a higher drop-out rate among girls, female completion rates are subsequently much lower. Boys enroll and complete secondary school at a higher rate than girls. Even with an immediate turnaround, parity cannot be reached by 2015. Other forms of discrimination against women still exist and women are generally less empowered than men" These are the words of the President of Sierra Leone in that 2010 Progress report and Khadarlis for Sierra Leone is reaching out to all well-meaning development practitioners, philanthropists and volunteers to make the dream of pushing for girl child education in Southern Sierra Leone a reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment