What We Do
Expand Education One School at a Time
Our first step toward keeping kids in school is making sure they have a school to attend. We work with local partners to build schools and maintain and improve existing school infrastructure to make it easier for students to attend regularly. This includes solar panels to provide light for evening study, libraries, and other amenities. We also build septic latrines and rainwater collection handwashing stations at all our schools to keep our students healthy.
We provide scholarships and other forms of basic support to at-risk children who need extra support to stay in school and learn.
Expand Education One Teacher at a Time
Teacher training. Once students have a school to attend, we focus on the quality of education children receive in that school. We work with communities to develop a basic system for tracking student attendance and performance as well as teacher qualifications. We work with local partners to implement a comprehensive teacher development strategy that includes Ministry of Education certification training, literacy instruction workshops, library training, and math and science instruction. We train and support teachers in our schools to become the best teachers they can be!
Teaching & Learning resources. In response to the lack of teaching and learning materials readily available to our teachers, we deliver a variety of resources for teachers and students to use in the classroom. These include locally written, illustrated, and produced stories at varying reading levels, curriculum books, teaching tools, and more. We are in regular communication with our partners to develop effective resources for teaching and learning.
Expand Education One Student at a Time
In Sierra Leone, menstruation is a significant barrier to education. In our schools, 20% of girls who have started their periods miss school when they are menstruating. Menstruation and menstrual hygiene is not talked about to girls in Sierra Leone, so many are surprised and afraid when they start their periods, and have no supplies to manage it. In our schools, 93% of girls who have started their periods did not know what menstruation was before they had their first period. Providing menstrual hygiene tools and reproductive health education is a direct way to keep girls in school and support their healthy growth and development.
Schools for Salone conducts reproductive health education with girls and boys in our schools, and distributes Days for Girls menstruation kits to girls who have started their periods. Uman Tok is a partnership between Schools for Salone USA, Uman TOK Sierra Leone, and Days for Girls. The purpose of Uman Tok is to make menstrual hygiene management and education available to women and girls across Sierra Leone so they can overcome the barriers of menstruation and achieve their dreams.
Since reproductive health education and kit distribution began, there have been zero cases of teenage pregnancy in any SfS partner schools, and the incidence of girls missing school because of their periods has dropped to near zero and remained there. When girls have the menstrual care they need, it empowers them to go to school and pursue a promising future.
