Where Learning Meets Action: A Visit to 3 NOW Communities
New Meima Village NOW participants
Dear Friends,
In February, I returned to Sierra Leone to spend time with 3 communities participating in One Village Partners’ Nurturing Opportunities for Women (NOW) program. The visit took me to OVP’s newest communities in Bombali and Kono Districts, where I met women and families working together to strengthen their livelihoods.
Early Shifts in Confidence and Planning
In Manonkoh community in Bombali District, I joined a discussion with a group of women who had been in the NOW program for only five weeks. Even in that short time, several described changes in how they approach daily decisions.
Some spoke about learning to plan financially for the first time. One woman explained that she previously spent whatever money she earned immediately, but now she plans her spending before going to the market. Another described how she has begun discussing her bread-baking business with her partner so they can decide together how to invest their savings.
Goal setting has also become a new habit. One participant explained how she now thinks about her ambitions in stages: short-term goals like sending her children to school, medium-term plans to raise livestock, and her long-term aspiration to buy land. These moments illustrated how empowerment often begins with small but meaningful shifts: planning, setting goals, and building confidence to act on new ideas.
NOW group photo in Manonkoh
A Community Welcome in Kono
In New Meima community in Kono District, the reception was memorable. As our team arrived, dozens of NOW participants gathered along the road singing, dancing and beating drums. The phrase they repeated over and over in Kono—“baia sassen ei”—translates to “sharpening stone,” the name OVP is known by locally.
Inside the community hall, a group of schoolchildren joined in singing a song of thanks. Their teacher explained that they are thankful their mothers have joined the NOW program and are working together with their fathers to plan household finances and save money, and as a result, many of these children are attending school for the first time.
As the gathering continued in New Meima, OVP Country Director Aminata Kamara led a group reflection, with participants sharing what the program meant in their daily lives. Kumba spoke first, offering a metaphor that seemed to resonate with everyone in the room. She explained that OVP staff demonstrated that a single broom straw breaks easily when bent, but a bundle of straws, when bent, does not break. The lesson here was that when the women of the community work together and when they work collaboratively with their husbands, they remain strong and resilient to external pressure.
Esther Vandi described how she was applying these lessons to her soap-making business, thinking more carefully about how she produces and sells her products. And Sahr Tengeh joined the session as his wife was not able to participate on the day, but he wanted to ensure his family was represented to express their thanks for NOW. He shared that the changes in their family had not been limited to business improvement or finances. The program, he said, had brought more cooperation and peace into their home.
I then visited Gbeikor community, where women described how, following NOW training, they now conduct informal market surveys before starting a business rather than simply copying what others are doing. Others spoke about saving part of their harvest instead of using it immediately, helping them manage risk across agricultural seasons.
Esther Vandi, NOW particpant in New Meima
Observing Adaptive Learning in Action
The timing of the visit made it particularly meaningful. In late 2025, our Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning team completed a qualitative assessment of the first phase of the NOW program in Kono District, where 1,000 women graduated from NOW 1 and 2 last year. The learning process captured through focus group discussions, interviews, and data collection showed what had worked well and where the program could improve as it expanded into a new region.
The findings of the assessment strongly reinforced the value of the program’s approach. Women consistently described stronger communication with their husbands and families, more shared decision-making around household finances, improved budgeting practices, and feelings of empowerment. Many spoke about the confidence they gained in managing businesses, planning for the future, and working together with others in their communities. Together, these insights are helping us apply continual improvement in delivery as we grow into new communities.
Looking Ahead
In New Meima, participants are already planning their next steps together. They recently began the agricultural component of the NOW program, and are planning to cultivate rice collectively, store it until prices rise, and then process and sell it together.
OVP’s foundational metaphor of the sharpening stone is well understood within the communities where we work. One Village Partners does not create change on behalf of communities. Instead, we help sharpen the tools of knowledge, confidence, and collaboration for communities to use to shape their own future.
In New Meima, Kumba shared at the end of our time together: “NOW sharpens us, and then we become sharpening stones for others in our community.”
In gratitude,
Nicole Johnson, Executive Johnson