KL.D.E.C
The Leak Experience is happy to announce our partnership with Kailahun District Education Committee (KL.D.E.C) School, located in Buedu, in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone. KL.D.E.C was founded by Kai Tongi in 1937 and serves as one of the main Primary Schools in the area.
Due to its distinctive location (bordering both Liberia and Guinea), KL.D.E.C was a major stronghold for the rebels, during the 11 years civil war that left over 50,000 Sierra Leoneans dead and caused tremendous destruction to majority of the structures in the area, including the school.
The community around the school is highly supportive of the students, wanting them to excel in educational achievements. Unfortunately, due to its remoteness (200 miles east of the capital Freetown), KL.D.E.C is often neglected when it comes to the disbursements of resources, around health and education for example, which other schools are in receipt of.
As a result, the population of over 30,000 are left without the necessary resources to sustain their basic needs. The impact of this is high poverty, low school attendance, high level of illiteracy and an influx of sexual assaults and teenage pregnancies.
The Leak Experience believes that every child deserves a fair advantage at life and is owed a duty of care that goes beyond their immediate family and communities. To date, we have supplied over 3,000 individual pieces of menstrual supplies to the young women of Buedu, via KL.D.E.C. We have conducted workshops around important subjects, such as health education, body image, sexual assault, goal setting, self-empowerment, and self-respect.
We do not believe in simply distributing menstrual supplies, we recognize that it’s imperative to get to the heart of the issues plaguing the students in this community. We do this by having open and honest conversations, exploring taboos, acknowledging society stigmas, and listening from a non-judgemental space therefore creating a safe space where these students feel seen, heard and valued.
We have earned the trust of not only the young girls, but that of their parents, the men in the community and the young boys – who we now also cater to, via our workshops on education and sexual assault. In these sessions, we teach young men on what is acceptable and not acceptable behaviour, when engaging in communication with the opposite sex, emotional intelligence and the importance of dreaming big.
We are elated about our partnership with KL.D.E.C. We are hopeful that with your ongoing support, we will be able to do more for this community.