Providing mentorship and guidance to adolescent girls in Kono

Kono, Sierra Leone - For three days every week, Esther Yarjah welcomes 30 young girls to the safe space for adolescent girls in Njagbwema community, Kono, where she has served as a mentor for the last three years.

For more than an hour on each day, Esther engages the young girls in lively and informative conversations about relationships, peer pressure, menstruation and how to handle the physical and emotional changes that come along with adolescence.

"Some of the girls here are young mothers, some are pregnant teens, some are engaged in risky sexual activities, while some are just young girls with questions which their mothers are not always free to answer. At the end of the day, we are all here to learn from each other," says Esther, as she reveals how she sees a shadow of her former self through each of the 30 girls, whose ages range between 10 – 19 years.

"As a young girl of 16 years, I ran away from home in search of an independent life,” says Esther, as she boldly narrates the rocky path she traveled in her early years. “For three years, I moved from one district to another with friends and even travelled as far as Monrovia with a boyfriend. I only came back to my parents’ home when I fell pregnant.”

Across Sierra Leone, many young girls, especially those from poor households are often lured into early sexual activities, mostly by men who give the girls false promises of lavish lifestyles. While Esther’s story resolved with her safe return to her parents, many girls in Sierra Leone face harsh consequences of pregnancy or marriage in their adolescence years.

According to the 2017 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, the vulnerability of girls in rural communities is high, with of 24 per cent of adolescents from rural communities already in marriage or civil unions before 18 years - for the 15-19-year age group, the prevelance of girls in marriage before 18 years is 24 percent.

Also worrying is that 38 per cent of girls in rural communities, have given birth by the time they are 18 years.  Because of their young ages, girls who fall pregnant early and those who get married early, often face difficulties related to their health and abuse from their partners. 

Through support from UNICEF and the Council of Churches Sierra Leone (CCSL), safe spaces for adolescent girls were established in 2018-2019 to provide services and information on how girls can prevent pregnancies, early marriages and be empowered to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV).

The safe space at Njagbwema was among the first to be established in Kono district and to date remains as an important platform to provide young girls with the support during their teen age years. Over 8,500 adolescent girls have been reached in Kono district since 2018.

Beyond Kono district, safe spaces have now also spread across 10 chiefdoms in Kambia and Moyamba districts starting in 2020, where 12,000 adolescent girls aged 10-19 years have been reached with services and information through safe spaces which are being supported by the International Rescue Committee.

“Child marriage and early pregnancies often disrupt girls’ education, limit their developmental opportunities, and expose them to the risk of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and complications from childbirth. The need to keep adolescent girls safe and empowered to respond to challenges they face, is therefore a critical part of the work we are undertaking in Sierra Leone,” says UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, Yuichiro Yamamoto.

By supporting each other, learning from each other, telling stories, and laughing, the young girls who meet under the guidance of trained mentors such as Esther, find solutions to the difficult phases which they pass through in their adolescent years.

By being frank and open about her own past, Esther hopes that her mentees would be motivated to make better and healthier choices and not follow the similar tracks she followed in her young life. 

"I want each of these girls to experience a better adolescent life, and for them to ask questions which I never got to ask when I was at that stage of life,” says the bubbly Esther. “I know that I could have achieved much more in life if I had not gone through this period I went through as a teenager.” 

Various stakeholders, including the Chief the local Community Health Workers and parents have also contributed to the running of the safe spaces. Community and parental support have helped in breaking of some of the negative stereotyping, social exclusion, and condemnation which girls face when they fall pregnant.  Stakeholders have also been key in providing appropriate health services whenever these are needed.

Esther is ecstatic about the positive changes she sees among the girls she is mentoring. She encourages each of the girls to maintain cordial relationships with their parents and encourages those who are out of school to either return to school or find a skill to develop, such as dressmaking.