Women Empowerment in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is consistently ranked amongst the poorest in the world. Placed 182 by the Human Development Index, it is a country where opportunities for a better life are hard to come by. Life expectancy is below 55 years and more than 57% of the country’s population live below the national poverty line. This is a country where surviving is not easy. One key factor to improve the situation is rooted in education. For Sierra Leonian women, however, this means battling systemic inequality. Roughly 15% of female students graduate from high school and only less than 1% are able to move on to higher education. Even if girls attend school, they often cannot afford to stay, leading to exceptionally high dropout-rates.
A Bachelor Degree followed by a Master Degree costs ~EUR 4.000; a price only few women can afford in a society with little options besides becoming pregnant, selling food or fabrics to earn money, all while taking care of family and household. The current situation in a country scarred by an enduring civil war, the Ebola pandemic of 2014/2015, and increasingly the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the long-term consequences of the Ukraine/Russia war, does not provide fertile grounds for change.
We Can Run
We Can Run is born from the idea that running is more than the physical notion of running; you can run a race, but you can also run a company, a store, a start-up, a team or simply go step-by-step to overcome obstacles to achieve a goal. Running as an idea covers the act of something that is in-the-moment, a constant becoming and something that only ceases to exist when one actively chooses so.
Running goes through both highs and lows and pursues the ability to build a solid foundation; one that is ultimately grounded in endurance and self-support, that is built on the pillars of resilience and perseverance. With this project, we want to help create a path for young women in Sierra Leone, so they have the chance for a better life.
We Can Run x L'appel
We Can Run has teamed up with L’appel to contribute to the higher education of female students in Sierra Leone. Building such a foundation is not just about enabling education with financial means, but also about understanding the drivers of pushing through adversity and fostering the resilience needed to create a more stable future from the ground up. We Can Run attempts to support the Women Empowerment Project
