Kadie* was born in a small village in Sierra Leone before her parents migrated to a displaced persons’ camp in Freetown at the end of the civil war. At first, she was enrolled in school but persistent poverty caused her to drop out and she spent several years in the camp where she faced abuse from family members.
This was her situation when Roseline, a street social worker from Concern for the Deprived Welfare Association (CoDWelA), first met Kadie. Roseline began to build a relationship with her, visiting her one-on-one to provide counselling, and eventually helped to enroll her in the War Wounded Vocational Institute to learn tailoring.
However, at first Kadie struggled with her classes. She had trouble concentrating, lacked self-confidence which meant she didn’t participate in class and didn’t believe in her own abilities, and eventually began to miss classes.
Because of this, Roseline asked one of the teachers to pay close attention to Kadie, who started to notice several indications of trauma in Kadie’s behaviour. The teacher had received training in trauma-informed approaches to education through CSC and CoDWelA’s education project, and used these skills to provide Kadie with personalized support.
With this intervention, Kadie’s self-confidence began to improve, and she started coming to class every day, making new friends, and eventually became a trauma champion herself – supporting her peers by talking about her experience and how she learned strategies to cope and continue with her education.
Alongside the improvement in her mental health, Kadie’s tailoring skills developed throughout the project, and she impressed her supervisors and became a role model to others in the Institute. Upon her graduation, she expressed her gratitude for the project, stating, “if not for the intervention of this project I would have been dead or in a very bad state.”
*Name has been changed
About our trauma-informed education programme
This project was set up to address trauma among war-displaced street-connected children to improve educational outcomes in Grafton, Sierra Leone, thanks to funding from the Education Opportunity Foundation. CSC worked with our local partners, CodWela and WeYone Foundation from December 2022 to December 2024 on the key activities listed below:
- Developed and delivered training on trauma-informed support for education and training street workers, youth leaders, community teachers and vocational training staff in Grafton to understand and address trauma amongst war-displaced and street connected students.
- Provided trauma-recovery, psychosocial and mental health support, life skills and community integration through street work to war-displaced and street connected children and young people (SCCYP) in Grafton, Sierra Leone
- Trained SCCYP in tailoring, hairdressing, soap making or carpentry, numeracy, literacy education using a trauma informed approach.
- This includes providing specifically girls with SRH education and reusable menstrual pads to support their retention.
- Supported and train SCCYP as street champions from the above student pool, in advocacy and peer support to enable them to serve as peer motivators and educators and join the community stakeholders in advocating for policy and attitude change.
- Shared key learnings using our ‘Global Working Group on Education’ who helped to develop & share guidance and tools with CSC’s 200+ global network. This includes CSC’s adapted training materials to be trauma-informed, and upskilling CSC’s Global Training Collective.
About Concern for the Deprived Welfare Association
CoDWelA is a community-based organization in Sierra Leone, set up to work with deprived and vulnerable street children and youths at risk between ages 0 – 24 yrs, by being safe adults in the lives of street children and building them up to their full potential.
Working in the outskirts of Freetown (Wellington, Calaba Town, Allen Town, and Grafton up to Waterloo & Tombo) CoDWelA have seen a huge number of vulnerable and at risk children and youths without hope or a future – in increasing numbers, particularly since the Ebola pandemic in Sierra Leone. The CoDWelA team work with street children, Ebola orphans and youths at risk – these vulnerable children are at the core of their child protection and development activities.