Sierra Leone

• Our office: Freetown
• Our areas of focus: Health, empowering women and girls, media development, economic opportunity
• Our partners:UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, European Commission, United Nations
  
• On social media:  Twitter, Instagram and Facebook

About our work

We’ve been working in Sierra Leone since 2007 on projects that span radio, mobile, social media and community discussion groups. We have been working extensively to create an enabling environment for independent media in Sierra Leone. From our flagship PRIMED media development project, to our current FCDO-funded media support project PIMHIE and the EC-funded Brave Media, we have been working with local partners to implement a National Action Plan for Media Viability in Sierra Leone. We are also supporting the National Fund for Public Interest Media which has provided grants to 14 media outlets across the country.

Radio is still the most important source of information in Sierra Leone, but online access is growing quickly, particularly among young people We are proud to run one of Sierra Leone’s most popular Facebook pages, which plays a significant role in dispelling misinformation, especially during elections.

We continue to leverage our huge social media following to increase digital media literacy and tackle mis- and disinformation. During the 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections in Sierra Leone, we recognised the need for media literacy training among a growing youth population who use social media every day and are at risk of being drawn into fake news, hate speech and disinformation. We trained bloggers, journalists and influencers on responsible use of social media and how to detect fake news. We also used our Facebook page to reach audiences and support them to be more resilient to harmful information and hate speech.

Our past work includes a bold girls’ education and empowerment project launched in 2019, supporting radio stations across the country to create vibrant programming that challenges the discriminatory attitudes holding girls back from realising their dreams. Our Kokotu Barray (Open Secret) radio drama addressed the challenges which girls often face in Sierra Leone - including relationships and teen pregnancy - while discussion programmes featured girls' own success stories, to inspire others to return to education or training.

We have also worked with the Global Disability Innovation Hub and Koalaa to raise awareness of the power of assistive technology for people living with disabilities in Sierra Leone. Our film series, Hands On, features three amazing stories of how assistive technology has brought immense change in individuals’ lives, while highlighting their challenges.