Last February, Executive Director, Jill LaLonde, wrote a blog post about our efforts to define and take action to decolonize our work and organization. Now, she’s providing an update on what we’ve achieved in this space, where we’ve fallen short, and a few areas of focus for the future.

On March 15th, we hosted a town hall with four experts on gender equity and women's empowerment in Sierra Leone. We discussed how women's empowerment and gender equity are thoughtfully integrated into the work of OneVillage Partners and are vital to the development of resilient, thriving communities.

The leadership of Maloma was male dominated. Decision-making power was solely in men’s hands. This culture was noticed by women in the community. As a result of this, women were not respected.

At OneVillage Partners, our staff, board of directors, and volunteers are always learning – about history, society, and ourselves. In honor of Black History Month, we’ve gathered up everything we’re reading, people from history who are inspiring us, and resources we utilize to challenge our perspectives. And we want to share all that good stuff with you!

OneVillage Partners and many other grassroots organizations have noticed the lack of inclusive planning in global aid and development and have chosen to take part in what’s called community-led development. But what is it, you ask?

Hawa Saffa is a 45-year-old business woman and a Nurturing Opportunity for Women (NOW) participant. She is also a widow with five children who lives in Ngolahun with her family. Before the NOW program in Ngolahun, Hawa lacked knowledge in savings and budgeting and household financial management.

In the spirit of sharing good news, we once again want to share with you our favorite accomplishments from this past year.

Like many villages in Sierra Leone, Kambama is resilient in the face of many challenges: limited access to clean drinking water, women's education and gender equity, and insufficient income. Learn how the community is coming together to provide equitable access to clean drinking water.

The leadership system in the community of Majoe displayed an unfair governance and social discriminations against women. Baindu Samu, a 30-year-old community member is one of those that went through this repressive and non-transparent leadership system. This is her story.

The Community Action program guides our partners to prioritize their poverty-related challenges and design unique solutions to those challenges. In this video, hear directly from Sheku and Jinnah, two Community Action volunteers from Bombohun, explain what they are doing to make their whole community healthy and resilient.

OneVillage Partners is proud to be partnering with Together Women Rise to fund the Nurturing Opportunities for Women (NOW) program. We recently sat down with Together Women Rise to discuss the impetus and impact of NOW and the importance and urgency of supporting women worldwide.

On September 8th, we gathered with our community of supporters both in-person and virtually for our Annual Partner Gathering. If you missed it, we recorded the virtual event just for you! Hear stories of impact from our community partners in Sierra Leone and words of inspiration from our founder and leadership.

Moinina Adu is married with a wife and has one child. He works hard in cultivating a farm to support his family, but the absence of safe drinking water facilities in the village made it so his family and others in the community had to cover 3-5 miles to fetch clean drinking water before OneVillage Partners collaborated with this village.

At OneVillage Partners, we know that when communities define what success looks like to them and have the tools to measure that success, projects and interventions are more effective and more sustainable – ultimately, the projects will continue to improve people’s lives for longer than if community members were not involved.

Mattu Vandi is a 32-year-old volunteer teacher married with three children. At a young age of 16, economic hardship forced her to drop out of school. Despite this situation, she was determined to bring about change in her and her family’s life.

Musu Kebah is a graduate of OneVillage Partners' Nurturing Opporunities for Women (NOW) program. During NOW, Musu learned valuable skills in managing her household finances and increasing profit from her business. But beyond money, Musu gained skills to become a confident leader.

Please join me in welcoming Pete into his new role as Board Chair! We look forward to his leadership as we embark on the next decade of building thriving, connected, and resilient communities in Sierra Leone.

From our most recent community partner, 12 women and men have volunteered to help improve the wellbeing of their entire community through OneVillage Partners’ Community Action program. These volunteers are part-way through a 14-step training on project design. They will emerge with leadership skills to manage the project and see it to fruition

On April 27th 1961, the United Kingdom granted Sierra Leone independence after over 200 years of occupation and colonial rule. It is important to remember that Sierra Leone history did not begin at colonization nor was it “founded” by the British. Colonization is however an important part of our history because it is the cause of so many challenges we are facing in our country today.

We are delighted to announce Together Women Rise as our newest grant partner, a powerful community of women and allies dedicated to achieving global gender equality.