Save the Children Sierra Leone donate Office Equipment and Stationeries to the Family Support Unit.

Save the Children Sierra Leone through the Danish TV “Mek wi tok bot Mammy en Daddy Bizness “Project has on Tueday,17^th March 2020 donated two Dell laptops and stationeries worth over thirty-six million Leones (USD 3,000) to the Family Support Unit of the Sierra Leone Police. 

The donation came as a result of a familiarization visit which the project team made to the Family Support Unit (FSU) Headquarters in Freetown late 2019 to ascertain some of the unit’s challenges in curbing sexual and gender-based violence issues in slum communities. Some of these challenges includes the training of new personnel attached to the Sexual Assault Syndicate (SAS) and the Major Incident Response Team (MIRT) of the FSU and inadequate stationaries and laptops to do their work.

Donating the items on behalf of the project, Madam Ramatu Jalloh, Director of Advocacy and Communication at SCI said the donation is one amongst several donations that the country office through its numerous projects have made to FSU. She however, reiterated that these items are used accordingly within the project’s catchment areas of Connaught, Aberdeen, Murray Town and Cockle Bay Communities respectively. 

Madam Bridget Lewis Communication Manager (Project lead) encouraged the Head of FSU to keep on doing the good job they are doing in prosecuting matters relating to sexual gender-based violence, especially against girls. She assured FSU that Save the Children as the leading child rights organization in Sierra Leone will continue to support the unit.

Receiving the items, the Head of the Family Support Unit in Sierra Leone, Superintendent Fatmata Daboh Kamara thanked and appreciated the organization. She said “Save the Children has really been supporting the FSU in curbing sexual gender-based violence in communities within their operational areas in Sierra Leone” She further assured the project team that the items will be used for their intended purpose.

The Family Support Unit (FSU) is a specialized unit attached to police stations and posts across Sierra Leone, with the mandate to investigate all forms of child abuse and violence against children (sexual and physical abuse, exploitation, including commercial exploitation). They also have mandate to investigate allegations of sexual and domestic violence against members of the public.

Additionally, in November 2019, fifty (50) personnel who had just been transferred to the project operational communities were trained on child justice issues, how to investigate, report and prosecute sexual gender-based matters. The training was facilitated by senior personnel within the Sierra Leone Police Force with presentation of certificates to participants at the end of the training sessions.