How youth in Sierra Leone are challenging violence in schools

Two children in Sierra Leone go to school.

Ending violence in schools is crucial to enable children to learn, grow, and thrive. In Sierra Leone, nine in every ten pupils in primary and secondary schools have experienced at least one form of physical violence. More shockingly, 86.5 per cent of children between the ages of 1-14 have experienced some form of violent discipline in the household, according to the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (2017).

One local organisation was determined to change these statistics.

YACAN, the Youth and Child Advocacy Network, was established by Sierra Leonean youth and children in 2005 to invigorate advocacy by young people, for young people. The organization asserts that investment in children and youth is a priority, and provides a platform for children to be trained as advocates so that they may raise awareness about youth issues among policy makers.

To address this rampant violence against children in schools, YACAN partnered with local organizations to launch the Learning Without Fear project. This nationwide initiative consisted in the creation of 100 clubs in schools across the Moyamba, Western Area Rural, and Western Area Urban Districts in Sierra Leone. Clubs created a safe environment for children in schools; members of clubs were trained in child rights, child abuse and violence, and acted as advocates to staunch negative behaviours in schools as they unfolded.

“The establishment of the school clubs is core to our approach and part of our ongoing methods to reach out to pupils in schools and communities to end school-related gender-based violence,” said Mrs Ya-Marie Jah Bah, the Head of Operations at YACAN. “These clubs contribute toward efforts aimed at enhancing children's access to quality basic education and strengthening protection against gender-based violence in and on the way to schools.”

These clubs contribute toward efforts aimed at enhancing children's access to quality basic education and strengthening protection against gender-based violence in and on the way to schools.

Mrs Ya-Marie Jah Bah, the Head of Operations at YACAN

Further, club members—who were typically older students—raised awareness of the problematic prevalence of violence in schools. The combination of awareness-raising and the presence of older students trained in these matters drove visibility of the need to end violence in school. This helped pupils feel safer and made them less tolerant of violence; club members instilled a culture of non-violence in schools, as they taught fellow students what, when and how to report. These child-friendly reporting mechanisms made schools safer and increased local children’s access to quality basic education. As a result, many schools saw a significant increase in enrolment figures.

One community, Freetown, witnessed a 30 per cent increase in its student enrolment after having welcomed YACAN’s school club program, the organisation reported. YACAN then took eradicating violence in schools a step further. Members of school clubs across the country observed that many incidents of bullying and sexual violence occurred in and around school lavatories. Shortly after, school clubs united and campaigned that local and national governments, as well as development partners, invest in keeping school toilets safe by renovating current facilities and building new facilities for girls where they did not exist. This advocacy effort resulted in the government’s allocation of resources to ensure schools across Sierra Leone could construct safe lavatories for all genders.

The End Violence Partnership is proud to support and promote YACAN and their work. We believe that every government should enact an enabling legal and policy framework to protect every child by ending violence in and through schools. Education unlocks a child’s potential to learn, develop, and dream. We should not let violence inhibit this.

Learn more about our work and our effort to #ENDviolence through the Safe to Learn funding window.

Photo: UNICEF/UN072209/Phelps

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