We met our goal! This summer we pledged to double the number of girls’ scholarships for the new school year from 150 to 300 Bumpeh Chiefdom girls. With your positive response to Sherbro Foundation Girls’ Scholarship Fund appeal, 300 girls are in school with their school fees paid for the full year. 

These are girls who can’t afford $20 annual fees for junior high or $25 for senior high. They’re at risk of dropping out in Sierra Leone’s post-Ebola economic crisis that has gone from bad to worse. But for these 300 girls, another year of school is assured.

Our Bumpeh Chiefdom partner, the Center for Community Empowerment & Transformation, CCET, administers the girls’ scholarship program with Sherbro Foundation funding. Scholarship students and parents gathered below, outside CCET’s new building after awards were made in October.

Few development programs have greater impact than helping girls go to school.  Now more Bumpeh Chiefdom girls are enrolled in secondary school than ever before. They’re progressing to higher grades and avoiding early marriage and teenage pregnancy.

Happy girls and parents from five schools joined principals to receive the scholarships. Scholarships were distributed based on each school’s female student enrollment.

Retired head teacher and CCET program volunteer Mr. Banard, above left, presented Prosperity Girls High School Principal Rosaline Kaimbay with 100 scholarships for PGHS students before the students and their parents.

Parents and scholarship students look on as Bumpeh Academy Principal Rashid Conteh, right, accepts 70 scholarships for his female students from CCET Executive Director Rosaline Kaimbay.

Principal Satigie Tarawallie, left,  accepts 70 scholarships on behalf of Walter Schultz Memorial Secondary School girl students from CCET’s Mrs. Kaimbay.

Girls at Ahmadiyya Junior Secondary School received 30 scholarships from CCET accepted by Principal Ibrahim Tarawallie center.

Thirty scholarships were additionally awarded to Ernest Bai Koroma Junior Secondary School female students.

Our sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to this year’s scholarship program appeal. This simple gesture of a $20 junior high scholarship can change a girl’s life!