At our Girls Shelter, we are working to end the cycle of violence against girls, reunite children with loving caregivers and equip young women with skills to improve their lives and their communities.
get to know our shelters
Our Girls Shelters in Makeni and Bo
We currently have two locations where we have built our Shelter:
The Girl's shelter in Bo houses 34 abused young girls and babies born as a result of Sexual Gender-Based Violence.
The Safe Home in Makeni houses 15 girls at a time, taking them out of crisis and helping them regain stability.
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We seek to make the shelter and Safe Home as self-sustainable as possible and to reduce operational costs so that we can increase prevention and intervention work in remote villages, reaching more communities and helping more individuals.
"We need additional funding to continue operating our shelter and providing prevention and intervention programs to address the source of the problems. Our operational costs are high and we are reliant on outside funding. Please consider making a donation! "
Hannah Bockarie & Ruben Rozental
testimonials
Learn about the girls in our shelters,
and help make a difference in their lives!
falmata kamara
This is the story of one of our girls and how, after being sexually abused, she seeked for shelter in one of our Houses. Now she wants to encourage other girls to do the same.
"I would like to stand up for the girls in our country"
Hannah bockarie
After years of suffering from traumas from war, Hannah decided to stand up and help other women who had gone through the same.
"I realized I needed to help other women to find life beyond trauma"
THE STORY OF OUR PROJECT
A very lucky accident
The creation of the shelter happened by accident. From the very beginning, we worked closely with the police department. One day, they appeared at our front door with a young girl who had been sexually abused by a family member. They asked us to take care of her, but we explained that our strength was in counseling, not medical assistance. The officer asked us to do what we could because they did not have the resources to take care of young girls.
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Given our vision for the country of Sierra Leone, we took the young girl to get checked out. We made a bed in one of the rooms we had, and we gave her the love, attention, and psychotherapy needed to deal with this horrific act. Once healed, we found a family member who would protect her, and we trained a volunteer to check on her on a regular basis. Thus began our shelter.
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Commit and Act foundation with support from friends started the construction of the shelter in the Bo District. Today, we also have a safe house in Makeni and have helped heal and rehabilitate young female victims of violence (Sexual gender-based violence, female genital mutilation, gang rape, and many more). We provide the necessary medical and psychological treatment, legal aid, education, trainings, livelihood, and basic needs (food, dignity kits, water, and clothing, hygiene) to help these girls heal their trauma and return to their families and communities. In addition, we provide education and abuse prevention trainings to girls at the shelter. Currently, 49 staff members provide care for our girls.
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Sexual Gender-based violence (GBV), Female genital mutilation, and child abuse are at epidemic levels throughout West Africa, Sierra Leone in particular. Recently, President Bio declared a state of emergency in Sierra Leone after a 3-year-old girl was raped. The First Lady has declared the issue of SGBV as her personal mission. The government has established "One Stop Centers" in 6 districts. These matters are compounded by the intense poverty of the South and Northern regions of Sierra Leone.
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