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In Sierra Leone, Scholarships Help Girls Stay in School
FrontLines - November 2009
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Since 2004, the Ambassadors’ Girls’ Scholarship Program has
provided scholarships and grants to help Sierra Leone’s girls resist
the pressure to drop out of school.
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FREETOWN, Sierra Leone— A normal school day for a typical 13-year-old girl in the rural areas of this country begins at 5 a.m. with a trip to the nearest well or river. Girls may make several trips and carry as many as 10 gallons of water between the well and home before starting out, without breakfast, on the long hike to school.
Without public transportation, many students must walk, through the heat of the dry season and the downpours of the rainy season, an average of two hours per day between home and school.
Classes usually last from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Then, it is time to walk home, and help parents in the field to cultivate rice, cassava,
or other crops. Instead of doing homework, girls must earn money to help offset school fees of about $30 per year and
for additional expenses including
school supplies and school clothes. After nightfall, the family leaves the fields to consume their first, and only, meal of the day.
Not surprisingly, few girls finish school in Sierra Leone. According to statistics, in Africa, girls make up the majority of the 33 million primary school age children not enrolled in school—a figure the Ambassadors’ Girls’ Scholarship Program is looking to cut.
Since 2004, the program has provided scholarships and grants to help Sierra Leone’s girls—and a handful of boys—ages 9 to 14 resist the pressure to drop out of school. The scholarships cover tuition, books, school supplies, and uniforms and shoes.
By 2010, the effort hopes to have provided 550,000 scholarships
in more than 30 African countries. The program is part of a multi-year, $600 million initiative to boost basic education among African youngsters. In addition to the scholarships, the program covers teacher training and the development of text books and other learning materials.
This year in Sierra Leone, 3,000 girls and 1, 200 boys across six districts have benefited from a $2 million program focused here. But competition for scholarships is tough. At one school, 48 students
were selected from among 689 candidates.
Aminata Mansaray is a scholarship
recipient who enrolled in the program at St. Ambrose School in 2005. She hopes to attend college to study accounting.
“Before going to bed every night, I study two hours, thanks to the program,” she said.
The program is vital in Sierra Leone, where most people live on less than $1 per day and would be hard pressed to afford the mandatory school fees. Girls here often drop out of school to look for work in the city or to start families.
“I will always be grateful to the AGSP [Ambassadors’ Girls’ Scholarship Program]…and I hope to achieve my desire of becoming a nurse,” said Kaday Conteh, a scholar who walks about 12 kilometers from her village in Bombali District to attend the Wesleyan Church of Sierra Leone primary school. “I would have been forced to marry and bear children at
this age, had it not been for the AGSP.”
★
FrontLines is published
by the Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs
U.S. Agency for International Development
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