The Sierra Leone War Trust, in collaboration with the Forum for African Women Educationalist has doled out yearly scholarship to vulnerable girls attending Secondary Schools in the Western Area, worth six (6) million leones.
Speaking at the scholarship award ceremony held at the FAWE School along Fourth Street in Freetown, the founding Chair of FAWE Christiana Thorpe said that girls have a potential that can transform any nation.
She then gave a brief background of her academic struggle and implored beneficiaries of the scholarship to make good use of the opportunity.
She encouraged recipients of the scholarship to be serious with their academic work and also appealed to parents to support girl child education to enable them become self reliant.
Jenneh Vandi expressed gratitude to FAWE membership and their development partners for working round the clock to ensure that girl child education is a priority; maintaining that the organization can now boast of 24 branches across the Country.
The National Chair of FAWE Sierra Leone Chapter, Elfreda Scott in an interactive discussion with the recipients, gave a brief background of the organization which she said started in March 1995, with the aim of supporting girl child education for the rapid development of the country.
She expressed disappointment over the poor performance of girls in public exams, lamenting that 74% of females cannot read and write in the Country.
She stressed that “this project is part of FAWE’s demonstrative intervention to enable vulnerable pupils stay in school particularly those who are living in abject poverty as most of their parents cannot afford to pay school fees.
Marion Morgan on behalf of Sierra Leone War Trust and FAWE distributed the scholarships and implored the recipients to come out with flying colors in their exams.
She then made mention of one of their projects in Makeni which has provided a school for over 200 children in the Northern Region.
She also cautioned parents not to divert the funds to other domestic use, as he warned recipients not to use the money extravagantly but to pay school fees and buy learning materials.
By Saidu Bah
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