Sierra Leone

A strong history of humanitarian response

GOAL undertakes activities to prepare for emergencies, develop preparedness plans and support district level partners to do the same. Our experience saw us take a central role in the response to the Ebola crisis of 2014. We trucked water to quarantined areas, enhanced facility-based WASH resources and mentored health workers on disease management and control. 

More recently, GOAL has responded to the 2018 mudslide, provided essential Covid-19 response nationally, and supports victims of fires and flooding regularly and through ongoing support to national governing response agencies.

Resilient Health across all six of GOAL's focus districts

GOAL supports local District Health Management Teams as they work to improve population health. Within this, we take a particular focus on child protection and adolescent, sexual and reproductive health. GOAL works closely with vulnerable children and youth to reunify them with their caregivers, provide them with non-formal education and access to key health services. We are also working to improve demand for, and access to, sexual and reproductive health services for adolescents. This is a key step in combating high levels of teenage pregnancy and maternal mortality.

GOAL delivers urban and rural WASH programmes in Freetown and Kenema districts. This means addressing direct service provision (such as faecal sludge management in Freetown and access to clean water in Kenema) whilst promoting positive behaviour change for increased service demand.

Promoting finanical inclusion in Sierra Leone

GOAL’s inclusion programme currently runs in five districts: Freetown, Kenema, Kambia, Bombali, and Koinadugu. Work is designed to focus on ‘decent’ work, address reliance on informal work sectors and combat human trafficking and child labour.

Advocacy is an important part of this. Our team is working to deliver practical activities on the ground, strengthen child protection structures at community level, as well as lobby for key developments at regional and national levels. 

GOAL's Covid-19 response in Sierra Leone

GOAL provided critical COVID-19 response support to communities and national governing health teams, utilising our extensive experience from the Ebola response to form the Community-Led Action (CLA) approach which is now a nationally adopted SBC tool aimed at spreading awareness messaging through a community-centred, locally-led approach. The tool is now being utilised nationally to support the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines among low-uptake communities.