By: Josephine Nyeweah in Kenema district
Grassroot Action for Community Empowerment and Sustainable Development Sierra Leone (GrACESD-SL), a national non-governmental organisation funded by UNICEF, recently concluded a day of refresher training and distributed sanitary tools and materials to targeted beneficiaries in Gbodapi, Kpanga Chiefdom, Pujehun district in the Southern region, as well as in Lowoma town in Lower Bambara and Sembehun town in Kandu Leppiama Chiefdom, Kenema district.
The Programme Manager of GrACED-SL, Patrick Bobor Momoh, disclosed that the project under implementation is for six months, from April to October 2025.
For the Kenema district, the funding agency is UNICEF, and the donor is the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the project geographical locations are Lower Bambara and Kandu Leppiama chiefdoms, respectively.
For the Pujehun district in the Southern region, the donor agency is UNICEF, the donor is the Government of Iceland, and the project geographical location is Gbondapi Kpanga Chiefdom.
He further pointed out that GrACESD- SL as an Organization is operating in 4 districts in Sierra Leone with support from UNICEF.
The major areas of intervention is Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) for the 2025 project implementation year, GRACESD-SL have active WASH project at 12 schools, 3 Peripheral Health Units (PHUs) in 3 Water Supply Communities namely ( Gbondapi, Lowoma and Sembehun communities) located in Kpanga chiefdom, Lower Bambara and Kandu Leppiama chiefdoms in Pujehun and Kenema districts.
GrACESD-SL staff across the operational communities are working with trained environment health clubs in all the 12 schools to help promote the domains of hygiene at schools level and at catchment community level to help tackle sanitary related diseases.
GRACESD-SL is also working in 178 Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) communities in lower Bambara and Kandu Leppard chiefdoms in Kenema district.
The over all objective is to end Open Defecation practices at chiefdom level that would help to improve population health and wellbeing.
To ensure the sustainability of these project, GRACESD-SL have trained WASHCOMs, Natural Leaders and Community Hygiene Promoters who are linked to the trained Village Savings Loan Association (VSLAs), the Toilet Business Owners and Local Artisans to improve sustain access to basic sanitation through the purchase of sanitation products like squat Pan among others that will lead to safely managed sanitation
A beneficiary madam Fatmata Binta Barrie head mistress for SLIM primary school Gbodapi, Kpanga Chiefdom Pujehun district thanked GrACESD-SL and the donors for their support in their operational communities, adding the name GrACESD-SL is a household name in their communities and their implementation strategies is an indelible ink in the minds of all and sundry.
She called on donors to give more support to GrACESD-SL so that more communities standing out there will benefit too in the interest of national development.
