Workshop
After a first workshop in April last year, a second workshop on INCE took place in late January 2025. This workshop was facilitated by our colleague Ephraim Agoman, INCE coordinator in Benin. The main goal was to decide on the focus of INCE Sierra Leone, based on the priority of needs in the context (as mainly defined during the first workshop). Thanks to all the efforts of the partners, we achieved the goal of this workshop!
Focus on pre-primary education / Early Childhood Development (ECD)
The consortium decided to focus on pre-primary education / Early Childhood Development (ECD), as this is an important felt need in the country and the government is showing special interest in developing education, starting from ECD as this level is fundamental. A first draft of a Theory of Change has been developed as well. As part of this workshop, a visit was organized to the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education of Sierra Leone (MBSS), including a meeting with the minister.
Start of activities
After the workshop, we decided to start our activities in Karene, considering the available data, existing facilities within this district, budgetary considerations to kick start, and the strategic positioning of the consortium partners.
Focus on parents
Currently, all partners are working on refining their action plans to start our INCE activities in April. We have expressed the intention to expand our activities to other districts once activities have started in Karene district, useful experience has been gained, and more (local) funding is available. Given the extensive data already available, an in-depth baseline study for Karene district is not necessary. We have consolidated these insights, and based on this, only a study with a particular focus on parents will be executed. This study will be conducted as a complementary exercise to enhance our understanding and strengthen our interventions towards parents and community engagement.
Recruitment of coordinator
Meanwhile, we hope to finalize the recruitment process for an INCE coordinator in Sierra Leone soon as well. In our next update regarding INCE Sierra Leone, we hope to inform you about the start of our concrete activities and the impact we are making!
