2023 Annual Report
Letter from Leadership
Dear friends and supporters,
As we reflect on the past year, we are filled with gratitude for your unwavering support and dedication to our mission to enhance collective wellbeing across Sierra Leone. Your generosity and commitment have enabled us to bring our community-led work to a record number of people and communities last year and to make significant strides in areas across health, education, and economic empowerment.
2023 was a year marked by growth and change. We collectively reached more than 50,000 individuals with programs that significantly reduced multidimensional poverty while putting individual and community agency front and center. In accordance with our strategic expansion goals, we moved into Kailahun District and prepared for work in Kono in 2024. Despite election uncertainty, staggering inflation, and unpredictable weather patterns, our partners continue to adapt and overcome hardship.
As you read this year’s Annual Report, we’d like to call your attention to a few highlights.
Empowering Rural Women
One of the cornerstones of our work is women's economic empowerment. We firmly believe that empowering women leads to stronger families, communities, and economies. From providing picture-based training, fostering entrepreneurship, and providing access to improved agricultural inputs, the NOW program is paving the way for women to thrive and become agents of change in their own right.
NOW Agribusiness participants at the farm
Last year, we saw an 88% increase in women’s involvement in household financial decisions, and 100% of participants increased their earned income. All 561 NOW participants had increased their savings by the end of the program.
Improving Health and Wellbeing
Last year, our partner communities completed projects to improve sanitation and hygiene, improve education access, and reduce infant and child mortality. These projects led to significant reductions in health-related issues, including an 80% reduction in hunger and a 73% reduction in diarrheal disease.
Looking Forward
As we embark on the journey ahead, we remain committed to our vision of a Sierra Leone where every individual has the opportunity to thrive and prosper. To achieve this vision, we are expanding our impact across all of rural Sierra Leone, through our direct programming and through forging new partnerships. We invite you to take a look at our Strategic Expansion plans at the end of the report.
None of our achievements would have been possible without your steadfast support, and for that, we are immensely grateful.
Together, we are making a difference.
With deepest appreciation,
Jill LaLonde
Executive Director
Shétu Rose
Board Chair
Our Mission
The mission of OneVillage Partners is to enhance collective wellbeing across Sierra Leone by investing in people and communities through partnerships.
Our Vision
We envision a future where Sierra Leoneans amplify their collective power to lead transformational change in their communities.
Empowering Rural Women
Empowering Rural Women
The NOW Program addresses the stark financial literacy gap among rural Sierra Leonean women.
NOW participants harvesting their rice in Tentihun
The Nurturing Opportunity for Women (NOW) Program is broken up into three phases, allowing participants to learn skills in Household Finance, Business Skills, and AgriBusiness.
The entire curriculum is picture-based, so women can reap the benefits regardless of literacy levels. The program also uniquely invites male relatives and families to participate so they can support the women in applying their skills.
In Kailahun District:
61% of women have no formal education
Only 1% have completed secondary school
29% are considered literate
NOW: Household Finances
Phase 1 empowers women with skills in financial planning, decision-making, and public speaking. Participants are trained in basic financial principles, learn tools for saving and tracking their resources, and practice communication skills.
NOW Household Finances in Kambama
NOW: Household Finance graduates in 2023
218
100%
of participants achieved the financial goal they set at the beginning of the program
NOW: Business Skills
Phase 2 trains women in entrepreneurship, so they can successfully run a profitable business. Upon completion of the program, participants are skilled in recording and tracking income and expenses, assessing risk, and calculating profit.
NOW Business Skills in Nyandehun
399
NOW: Business Skills graduates in 2023
of participants increase their business revenue after graduating
100%
99%
of participants can demonstrate understanding of a monthly budget and profit
NOW: AgriBusiness
Phase 3 provides agricultural training, including effective farming techniques for increased crop yields and best practices for marketing and sales of produce. Women use their financial planning and business skills learned in the first two phases to build a women-led group agriculture business.
NOW Agribusiness participant
159
NOW: Agribusiness graduates in 2023
100%
increased earned income
$11,000+
94%
reported a decrease in instances of hunger
in collective savings
NOW Program: Advancing Gender Equity
The NOW Program doesn’t just improve women’s income and business skills. It also has played a significant role in advancing gender equity, both at home and in the broader community. Last year, the program not only reached 561 participants through direct training, but it also reached 14,500 individuals through the families and communities where participants reside.
NOW participant Satta Fallah
increase in women’s involvement in major household financial decisions
88%
>50%
of speakers at community meetings are women
of women report that men actively participate in domestic contributions (previously viewed as “women” roles)
99%
of participants shared learnings with someone not in the program
97%
NOW participants and their husbands
Kadie Lamin and NOW Business Skills participants in Kambama
“Before OVP I did not know how to do calculations on what I have sold. I would use all the money [from goods] I sold to buy other goods without saving. But now thanks to OVP (and the NOW program) from the learnings, I can now do some savings and budget over the types of goods I want to buy. I am now included in decision-making especially as a breadwinner and I have also informed my neighbors and friends.”
- Bashiratu Momoh
Kambama, Kailahun District
Improving Health & Wellbeing
Improving Health & Wellbeing
Our partnerships with 50 communities in 2023 led to significant reductions in multidimensional poverty and improvements in health and wellbeing. Together, we celebrated 5 new completed projects through our Community Action Program, where communities design and implement projects that meet their most pressing needs.
Community Action Success
Staff members celebrating the new latrines in Konabu at the community handover ceremony
people across Potoru, Sawula, and Konabu now have access to sanitation facilities after constructing 62 new latrine structures
3,211
Communities saw a 73% reduction in diarrheal disease after completing sanitation projects.
The Lead Program
Through our Lead Program, we provided grants to longstanding community partners to implement projects that they have designed to meet their community’s most pressing needs. In 2023, OneVillage Partners and a team of community stakeholders selected and funded four proposals.
Children of Yandohun
Majoe Primary School
OneVillage Partners worked with community members in Majoe to transform their original three dilapidated classrooms into an updated facility with six classrooms, an office, store, water well and latrine.
This partnership has led to better learning outcomes among students and has increased enrollment overall, as parents who were previously sending children to school in other communities can now enroll them closer to home.
Majoe Primary School
At-a-Glance
Enrollment:
55% girls
45% boys
Total Reach: Four communities
Grima (3 miles away)
Kigbai (2 miles away)
Bunumbu (6 miles away)
Konibu (3 miles away)
Potoru community members vote on which pressing issues to solve
Kadie Mustapha speaking at the Konabu ACT handover ceremony
Beyond Projects: “Community-led” Works
Because individuals are leaders in planning and decision-making about work that will affect their lives, our impact extends far beyond the individual projects that communities complete.
Click each item below to see the ways that community-led projects benefit communities.
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90% of our projects are operational and maintained by communities 5 years after completion.
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Last year, 86% of community members contributed financially to their shared development project
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52% of OneVillage Partners volunteers are elected to formal and informal leadership roles in their community after volunteering to lead projects
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Partner communities saw a 151% increase in husbands who report doing “non-traditional” tasks
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82% of households felt that they could bounce back from an economic shock, up from 0% of households when first surveyed
Morie Potoru Januah CAG (Chairman)
Teaching Land Rights
Teaching Land Rights
Land ownership in Sierra Leone is complex, particularly for women. Traditionally, when a woman is widowed, her land will go back to her husband’s family. With losing her land, she will be unable to farm, generate income, or feed herself and her family.
Pujehun land mapping training
Recognizing these challenges, in 2022, the Government of Sierra Leone passed a new law to protect women; however, many women - particularly in rural communities - are unaware of their rights.
To address this, OneVillage Partners worked with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to educate women and communities on their rights, to map community land and land boundaries, and to proactively plan for the uses of land, including areas designated for conservation.
453 people across 30 communities were:
Educated on land rights
Able to map land borders between families and communities
Taught how to set aside land for conservation
As a widow, I feel a deep sense of pride for gaining increased knowledge of the “CLR Act 2022” (new land right legislation). I had been deprived to be heard in my community and family land decision-making for so long. With this newfound knowledge, I am committed to ensuring that my voice is heard in my family and community land decision-making processes.”
– Seibatu Koroma
Gbeka, Kailahun District.
Following this training, four women have already advocated for themselves and inherited their rightful land back.
Majoe land mapping activity
Hello, World!
Most Significant Change Story
Most Significant Change Story
A Single Woman’s Role Rescues the Community
Story told by Massah Morie
Transcribed and translated by Philemon Vandi McSenesie and Konneh Samba, OneVillage Partners staff
Massah Morie, a 28-year-old woman, and casual laborer lives in Makka; a community found in the eastern part of Sierra Leone, Kailahun District with more than 800 inhabitants.
Massah admires business travelers who come to do daily business in the community and return. Massah also wanted to undertake a business, so she embarked on casual labor to start her business.
She saved NLe 1,000 (One Thousand Leones) and started selling raw fish. She did not know market surveys, nor how to track business expenses and profits.
Massah was also unaware of how to use the business calendar. “My fish business was always coinciding with the time people embarked on ponds, streams, and swamps fishing” Massah stated.
She had limited knowledge of the type of year-round business to establish. She also spent unlimitedly and her business started collapsing due to frequent loans for luxuries.
“I was always involved in taking ‘by day’ loans to buy luxurious clothes worth NLe 500 (Five hundred Leones) to be repaid in two weeks.”
Massah consistently faced police arrests when she could not repay her business loan as per her agreement with the creditor. The frequent harassment nearly drove her to give up her business. “I was arrested by the police on my farm and taken to Segbwema police station where I spent a whole night in the cell. I almost decided to leave the business,” Massah confirmed.
But then, Massah encountered OneVillage Partners.
Massah witnessed the OneVillage Partners community meeting in her community where she became motivated and decided to join the Nurturing Opportunities for Women (NOW) program in 2018.
She learned about how to improve her business skills and the dangers of taking risky loans. In the NOW phase 2 program, she was taught the importance of market surveys and how to track business profits from investments. Massah identified a new business to embark on but it was still difficult for her to stop taking risky loans.
To start a new business, Massah has to do a market survey to better understand customer preferences and tastes. She opted to start cacao, rice, palm oil, jewelry/clothes, and food.
“I prioritized the business that was the demand of the community members. As soon as I started this, I began making profits,” Massah explained. Massah separated her household savings from business savings because of her increased knowledge of business skills from the training with OneVillage Partners.
Massah Morie, Makka
Community members in Makka
With her making profits, Massah started giving out loans to community members with no interest. Some community members were not repaying the loans on the stipulated time and some did not even pay the loans. However, she used her business savings to add up to the available cash to buy new items.
Massah started to see business profits by calculating business expenses and taking away its bulk total from the income. She has a stable running business. Her business grew day by day and the community began to recognize her voice in most decision-making. She loans community members in need with finance and other goods to solve household problems and repay with small or no interest.
“I loaned seven thousand new Leones (NLe 7,000) from Massah on 5th January 2023 to add it up to my money to buy a star TVS motorbike. I was able to repay this loan within three months. This motorbike is now helping me support and solve my household problems. Massah is our redeemer in supporting youths to reach their potential and community to grow,” Bockarie Dauda, a male community youth confirmed.
Massah's business profit continues to grow day by day. Recently, she provided financial support to the community for a communal project work. “I loaned the community during the barry implementation at the clinic with one ‘Bata’ of palm oil and seven hundred and fifty new Leones (NLe 750 or $32 USD) to provide food for work to complete the construction work,” Massah confirmed.
Massah now has five thousand new Leones (NLe 5,000 or $211 USD) in the household savings.* Her business has expanded to thirty-five thousand new Leones (NLe 35,000 or $1,477 USD) capital. She accumulates a yearly profit of twelve thousand new Leones (NLe 12,000 or $506 USD) from her businesses. “Effort determines the success of a sustainable business,” Massah stated.
*This amounts to more than 6x times the national minimum wage salary per month. For context federal minimum wage in Sierra Leone is nLe 800 ($34 USD).
Makka community members calculating income versus profit
“Any business without proper expenses and profit tracking will easily collapse. I have learned how to take a good record, separate household savings from business savings, and stop buying luxury clothes. This will facilitate a sustainable business.”
— Massah Morie, Makka
Hello, World!
Impacting More Lives
Impacting More Lives
We are proud of the impact that we’ve achieved, and there is still so much more to do. We aspire to expand our impact across all of rural Sierra Leone. Through direct program implementation and through forging new partnerships, we are scaling our impact on a regional and national level.
Building on the success of twelve years of work in Kailahun District, we have begun to expand our reach to 15 rural districts, having moved into Kenema District in 2023 and with plans to move into Kono in 2024.
Nianahun handover ceremony
Over this expansion period, we will:
Complete 80 community-led development projects
Celebrate 7,000 NOW Program graduates
Measure a 75% sustained reduction in multidimensional poverty
2023 Financial Summary
2023 Financial Summary
Revenue Breakdown
Total Revenue: $1,119,463
Expenses Breakdown
Total Expenses: $1,139,288
OneVillage Partners Team in Sierra Leone