SiLNoRF Trains Community Participants on National Action Plan

By Abu Bakarr Munu,

Communication Officer, SiLNoRF

The Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food (SiLNoRF) with support from SWEDWatch, on Wednesday, August 2023, kick-started a two-day intensive training for community participants at the Mankind Activity for Development Accreditation Movement (MADAM) Conference Hall in Makeni.

The training was witnessed by two members in the top echelon of the Swedish-based human rights outfit, in the persons of Jessica Johansson, who doubles as the Program Officer and Project Manager, and Madeleine Goni Stoctenberg, the Head of Resources (Finance and Human Resources), SWEDWatch. The project is a pilot implemented by SiLNoRF in Sierra Leone and Green Advocade in Liberia in a bid to usher sustainable peace in the West African sub-region.

The training is geared towards enhancing the capacity of community participants in business, human rights, peace, and the environment, with special focus on women, who are one of the vulnerable groups. The training attracted participants from communities across the country, where mining and agro-based multinational companies are operating.

The training is used as an entry point for SWEDWatch in doing business, human rights, peace, and the environment in the country, and also as the build-up to the National Action Plan (NAP) on business, human rights, peace and the environment in Sierra Leone in 2024.

SiLNoRF Head of Programs, Lansana H. Sowa, welcomed participants and explained the rationale of the training, pointing out that the dominance of women in the training is deliberate and that they are specifically targeted because of their vulnerability in society, particularly in those communities they’re residing in.

Speaking further, Mr. Sowa spoke about human rights and explained the 3 Gender Laws of 2007, which include the Customary and Divorce Act, the Devolution of Estate Act, and the Domestic Violence Act. He also tried to draw the nexus and difference between human rights and women’s rights.

The SWEDWatch’s Program Officer and Project Manager, Jessica Johansson, said it is purely based on the aspect of doing business and human rights, with a view to looking at the violations and abuses of these rights in the operations of multinational companies. She said that they are to get a better understanding of the issues to raise awareness and speak out on behalf of communities that suffer from these violations, and channel their grievances at another level.

The Deputy National Coordinator (DNC) of SiLNoRF, Abass J. Kamara, reiterated and emphasized the importance of the training. He also spoke about the various human rights instruments that guaranteed those specific rights.