Programme for Children,
Sierra Leone
About Programme for Children
Mona Partner Since 2019
Founded in 1980 and formally registered as a nonprofit in Sierra Leone in 2004, Programme for Children (PFC) is an example of participatory community-based development at its best. PFC works in collaboration with community members, local and religious leaders, and government agencies to improve access to education for students of all ages in Sierra Leone’s rural villages.
The community provides land and manual labor. PFC secures funding, oversees the construction of schools, libraries, or vocational training centers, and provides educational support including school supplies and health services for girls. The Ministry of Education trains, certifies, and pays the teachers to ensure students receive a high-quality education.
Since 2019, Mona Foundation in collaboration with Programme for Children have worked alongside local communities to build 8 schools, a community library and a vocational training center each serving several villages.
Sierra Leone is the only country in the world with
22% of its annual budget committed to education
as the key to building a better future for all its citizens.
PFC's Impact in Action: Asmawo's Story
Filmed during Mona's June 2026 site visit
The Context
The history of Sierra Leone creates a unique context for the projects that Mona Foundation supports: Bunce Island as a slave trading point, Freetown as the British settlement for freed slaves following the American Revolution, blood diamonds and the exploitation of natural resources by outside countries that continues today, a brutal 11-year civil war that left thousands mutilated, and an Ebola outbreak that took thousands of lives. Today, roughly 57% of the population lives below the national poverty line.
Today, Sierra Leone is a secular nation with a constitution that provides for the separation of religion and state and freedom of conscience. Muslims make up about three-quarters of the population, with an influential Christian minority, and Sierra Leone is widely recognized as one of the most religiously tolerant countries in the world, with interfaith harmony deeply embedded in the country's cultural identity.
Against this background, the government has committed 24% of its national budget to education. President Dr. Julius Maada Bio has declared that "empowering women and girls is not optional; it is a condition for achieving inclusive and sustainable development in our countries." The country's First Lady is leading a campaign advocating for women's rights, visible across the country through billboards promoting girls' education, bodily autonomy, and an end to gender-based violence.
A Glimpse into Mona's 2026 Visit to Sierra Leone
Learn more about Mona's site visit in our blog
Programme for Children Programs
Access to Education
Programme for Children works with villages to address their local needs for access to education. The village people secure and clear the land for their school and PFC constructs the school building with a water well, latrines, and a hand-washing station included.
PFC also provides the furniture, books, materials, and supplies needed to get the school up and running.
Health Education
Programme for Children delivers sexual and reproductive health education lessons at its schools, giving both boys and girls the knowledge to make informed decisions about their health.
PFC also provides menstrual-health kits to promote equity in student retention.
Teacher Training
Teacher training and certification is an integral part of supporting education in Sierra Leone. Programme for Children works to support all teachers at the schools it builds to complete the government's certification program. This ensures teachers have the skills and training needed to be effective. The program takes place during school breaks over three years. Once certified, teachers are eligible for government payroll.
A peek inside the lively Muloma Women's Vocational Training Center and Jaiama Junior Secondary School.
Opening ceremony and celebration for the Jaiama Junior Secondary School.
Construction of the Koribondo Library for elementary, secondary, and college students.
How we help
Mona Foundation began working with Programme for Children in 2019. Since then, we have funded PFC to build eight educational institutions: three primary schools, two junior secondary schools, a senior secondary school, the Koribondo Community Library, and an expansion of the Muloma Women's Technical Vocational Center. Mona also provides furnishings, books, learning materials, and menstrual health supplies, funds sexual and reproductive health education lessons, and supports teacher training and certification.
See the community's excitement and enthusiasm at the newly constructed building at Muloma Women's Vocational Center. The center offers 7 training tracks to 150 students in addition to enabling the certification of teachers from surrounding villages so that they can receive their salary from the government and enabling distance learning for students from two universities.
PFC's 2025 Progress
With your help:
- 1,197 students educated at 5 Mona-funded schools, 1 vocational training center, and 1 library
- Completed construction of Kpeyama Primary School, now serving 61 students with water well and sanitation facilities
- 11 teachers from Kpatobu and Tihun enrolled in college through the Teacher Training Program
- 697 students received learning materials
- Health education sessions delivered with 70 health education kits distributed in Kpatobu and Tihun
PFC's 2026 Plans
Mona's commitment: $103,725
- Educate 1,447 students at Mona-funded schools, vocational training center, and library
- Construct a new school in Balahun to serve 250 children, with four classrooms, water well, and sanitation facilities
- Continue teacher training, health education programming, and provision of learning materials across partner schools
Hear from a dedicated Mona Foundation supporter about Sierra Leone and his learnings from the experience of visiting the communities in which Programme for Children carries out its important work.
Programme for Children News
Abu Conteh is an 8-year-old Class 4 student from Kpeyama Village whose family relies on seasonal farming.
Since attending a PFC school, Abu has benefited from improved teaching methods and learning materials that have strengthened his reading, writing, and mathematics skills. He has become one of the most active and confident students in his class, regularly helping classmates and encouraging his younger siblings to take their education seriously.
Teachers report that Abu demonstrates strong leadership qualities and consistently encourages other students to attend school and participate actively in class. His enthusiasm for learning has also inspired his family to become more supportive of their children's education.
Abu dreams of becoming a teacher so he can help children in rural communities receive a quality education and achieve their own dreams.
Wuyatta's Story
Wuyatta, a 16-year-old girl from Yambama Village, Sierra Leone, joined Programme for Children with a dream to excel in her education and become a nurse. Coming from a family of six with a limited income, her parents struggled to provide school supplies and basic necessities. As the eldest child, Wuyatta often helped her mother with farming, leaving little time for her studies. Since joining the program in 2023, Wuyatta has received school supplies, participated in Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) lessons, and benefited from improved teaching materials and resources provided to her school. The menstrual hygiene kits she received enabled her to attend school regularly, breaking the cycle of absenteeism caused by a lack of proper supplies...
In 2024, the Sierra Leone Parliament enacted the "Prohibition of Child Marriage Act," a law which made it a "crime to marry, attempt to, betroth or cohabit with a child, ill-treat a child to marry, officiate, promote, attend, conspire, aid and abet a child (a person below the age of 18) marriage."
In reinforcing this law, Sierra Leone Health Directors as well as PFC Gender Officers have spread out across the area to inform parents, elders, and chiefs of the law, and to deliver reproductive health education courses to both boys and girls. The picture below shows students at Mona-funded Tihun Secondary School — the only high school in the area, serving seven villages — receiving this life-saving education along with reproductive and menstrual health kits from PFC Gender Officers.
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