BY: Augusta Osmatu Bangura There was a boy, barely twelve, whose mornings began not with breakfast or toys but with the naked will to survive. When he was five, most of his peers were already in school, learning their letters and numbers, but he was not. His parents were alive, young, and seemingly able, yet for reasons he could never understand, they did not put him in school. Another woman, seeing his hunger to learn, took pity on him and enrolled him. But when he came to l

By: Augusta Osmatu Bangura A young woman arrives at the Family Support Unit clutching her baby, her left eye swollen, her voice barely above a whisper. It isn’t the first time she’s been hit, but it is the first time she has dared to report it. If you’re going through the same thing, you know you can be like her, right? And speak up! It happened hours earlier on the outskirts of Freetown. Children sat quietly in a compound, too small to understand the raised voices that broke

For months, the brick dust in Almaty clung to his skin like a curse. Every morning before dawn, Client 7 NLT, a young Sierra Leonean man, woke to that same cruel reality. He would join seven others, including two fellow Sierra Leoneans, five Nigerians, and a Ghanaian, to mould and lift bricks in silence. Their passports were gone, their wages stolen, their hope slowly dying in a factory thousands of miles from home. Back in Sierra Leone, his family waited for the dream they h

By: Augusta Osmatu Bangura The heart – the moment it stops, so does your life journey. Yet, all too often we neglect the wellbeing of...

By: Augusta Osmatu Bangura   Hi, it’s Agnes Waggay again. The last time I told you how I got married at 16 and was widowed at 32 after my...

By: Augusta Osmatu Bangura There they were, begging on the streets of Freetown. No one stopped. No one really saw them. They hovered...

Gathering in Freetown, JNJF convened a special Widows Empowerment Workshop, bringing together chairladies and secretaries from its...

By: Augusta Osmatu Bangura ‎Meet Mathilda Conteh, a 45-year-old market trader at Kroo Town Road Market in Freetown. She’s known for her quick hands, generous smile, and selling cassava and potato leaves, a trade she’s carried on since she was 12. ‎ ‎But before her story, consider this: ‎For many, the rainy season is cozy. It’s warm blankets, the soothing rhythm of raindrops on rooftops, the perfect excuse to rest indoors. ‎ ‎Now, come to Mathilda’s world. ‎For her and countl

By: Augusta Osmatu Bangura She was born in innocence, believing she would be the master of her own life. Little did she know her path had already been carved by tradition. From the moment her tiny hands could grab tin cups for “play cook,” her parents—rather than handing her a pencil to write—offered her something they thought was better: an abackor to cook. When her innocent body began to change—breasts like calabash, hips swelling like cherries—they declared she was n