Meet Hannah Kargbo, Executive Director and founder of GADNET Sierra Leone. Girls Advocacy Development Network is an organisation that works with vulnerable women and marginalised girls in several cities in the country to improve their social wellbeing. They do this through trainings and workshops aimed at assisting Sierra Leonean women realise their potential in society.
Hannah and some friends started GADNET in 2019, August 29, to be exact, as a social club that rendered humanitarian services to their communities. The organisation has grown to impact over a thousand girls in Sierra Leone through the platforms and workshops they put in place. The principal driving force behind GADNET is achieving equal rights for women. To achieve this, they not only work with the girl child, but they also engage the boy child by making him aware of the girl’s rights, hence lessening the gap in the future generations.
The workshops GADNET has done in bringing girls’ awareness to the boy child have yielded many a positive results. Hannah says that after some workshops, some boys act as agents of change in society by reporting and acting against the maltreatment of their female counterparts.
GADNET’s activities not only end in workshops and long speeches about girls’ rights, they also engage with business people in offering skills training to the girls they work with so they can be productive in society and break the stereotypes. Once a member of GADNET has gained a skill set, they help them share this with more girls so that more and more are empowered.
GADNET hosted the second edition of the National Girls Summit on 46 October 2021 at the new city hall in Freetown. VAfrica covered the event and you can find a concise summary here. Hannah Kargbo’s interview was recorded before the National Girls Summit took place. If you want to get in touch with GADNET, you can visit them on number 8A Lumley Beach road or contact them on +232 (0) 30 076 588.
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