This project was endowed by Mrs Joan Davis who cared passionately about giving educational opportunities to girls. During her lifetime she took great pride in everything achieved by the girls supported by this project and delighted in receiving their letters and seeing posts from them. We are very sad that Joan died, aged 93, on 15 September 2023. The project will live on in her memory and we will continue to fund it via donations from our supporters.

An interlinked web of issues, including family poverty, gender discrimination, teen pregnancy, violence and child marriage, forces too many teenage girls to drop out of school. In Sierra Leone, only one in six girls completes secondary school.

This 3 year project is supporting 30 girls from Freetown’s largest slum community to complete Junior Secondary School.

The World Bank has demonstrated that supporting girls’ education is one of the best investments you can make for breaking the cycle of poverty, as better educated girls are likely to marry later, have fewer and healthier children and be able to earn more (12% more for each additional year of education).