By Nafisatu Olayinka Deen
Freetown, 20th April 2026 —The Lady Ellen Women’s Aid Foundation has held a stakeholder’s engagement in Waterloo under the project: “Building Community-Driven Ecosystem to Tackle Violence Against Women and Girls in Freetown, Western Area Urban and Rural districts.”
This initiative aimed to ensure community-led participation in the design of policies and programs to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls, as well as take a lead role in ending harmful social norms practices that perpetrate Violence against women and girls.
The Executive Director, LEWAF, Mohamed Jalloh, said that the primary goal of the project was to contribute to tackling violence against women and girls in Sierra Leone, specifically Freetown, Western Area Urban and Rural districts.
Jalloh explained that the stakeholders’ meeting is a way of creating a collaborative atmosphere between stakeholders in different communities. “This project will strengthen community-level collaboration and coordination ecosystem that connect strong linkages in-and-between communities; and from the communities all the way up to the national level institutional responses Service providers,” he explained.
The Assistant Director Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs, Foday Sesay, commended LEWAF for this initiative and said that community mobilization was one of the challenges the government grappled with, adding also sensitization on ending violence against women and girls. He noted that the intervention by LEWAF to engage stakeholders on ending violence against women and girls was important and timely.
Stakeholders reaffirmed their commitment to continue to strive for implementation of laws and policies to punish perpetrators and seek Justice for victims of abuse.
