Our work
Removing barriers. Expanding opportunity.
Persons with disabilities meet barriers across everyday life — from entering a classroom or a health centre to reaching skills, employment and decision-making. WESOFOD-SL works on five fronts at once.
01
Inclusive Education
The barrier
Inaccessible buildings, untrained teachers and missing learning materials keep children with disabilities out of classrooms their peers walk into.
Our approach
Inclusive pedagogy training for teachers, school adaptation so that buildings are accessible, education bursary support including tuition fees, and tutorials and academic support so that learners with disabilities can participate alongside their peers.
The work goes beyond access. Each intervention also addresses the barriers that push children with disabilities out of school once they are enrolled — so that they stay, and complete their education.
Learning starts earlier than school: Bright Future Pre-School at Village of Hope provides safe, inclusive and quality early childhood education.
Results reported
- 670 teachers trained
- 100 schools adapted for accessibility
- 1,100 learners supported with bursaries and learning materials
- ~50,000 children benefiting from improved access
- 30% enrolment increase in targeted schools, 2018–2025
02
Inclusive Health
The barrier
Physical, social and informational barriers stand between persons with disabilities and healthcare — including sexual and reproductive health services.
Our approach
Community health awareness led by persons with disabilities, training for healthcare workers, facility accessibility works and rehabilitation.
Provision of mobility aids and assistive devices, health fairs, and health referrals and linkages to appropriate health services — so that a diagnosis leads to care.
Results reported
- 18 communities and ~9,000 people reached over five years
- ~250 healthcare workers trained
- 2,130+ mobility aids and assistive devices provided
- 50 health centres adapted, with 150 ramps
03
Livelihoods & Climate Justice
The barrier
Economic independence is essential to inclusion, yet persons with disabilities — especially young people and women — are shut out of skills, credit and agricultural livelihoods.
Our approach
Vocational training, support for small businesses and workshops, entrepreneurship and financial skills, and climate-smart agriculture and agro-ecology.
Village Savings and Loan Associations sit behind much of this — community-based savings, microfinance and loan mechanisms that members own themselves, and that can carry a small enterprise or a more independent livelihood.
Through MI-Chance to Work and Grow Together, funded by Christian Blind Mission, we introduced the Survival Garden model, combining traditional and modern farming for food security, nutrition, income and independent living.
Results reported
- 1,000 persons with disabilities completed competency-based vocational training
- ~600 of them young people
- 1,200 people supported to establish a small-scale enterprise
- 50+ households supported in climate-smart agriculture
- ~7,200 community members expected to benefit from improved livelihoods, clean water and local produce
Accessible and inclusive agriculture
Persons with disabilities should not be excluded from farming because tools, systems and opportunities were never designed with them in mind.
We promote inclusive agricultural participation through climate-smart and agro-ecological farming practices, livelihood support and farming tools adapted for farmers with disabilities — and we take part in the national Feed Sierra Leone initiative, where produce grown by farmers with disabilities has been shown publicly.
04
Social Protection
The barrier
Exclusion, abandonment and missing support services leave persons with disabilities without the protection and the family and community life they have a right to.
Our approach
Improving access to social protection services, and residential and community-based support for children with disabilities and their families.
In practice
The Residential Rehabilitation Centre, established in 2015, is a safe and inclusive home for children with disabilities from remote and underserved communities: education, rehabilitation, healthcare referrals, psychosocial support, livelihood preparation and daily care.
The Transitional Accommodation Facility supports young people who move on from residential care towards independence — into university, vocational training or work — and houses persons with disabilities who come to the Village of Hope for training.
05
Inclusive Governance
Our approach
Disability rights advocacy, youth civic participation, leadership development, community accountability work, accessibility auditing of public buildings, and engagement with election management bodies.
Promoting the participation of persons with disabilities in electoral processes from the earliest stages — so that they take part in elections and political life as voters, candidates and decision-makers.
Results reported
- ~2,000 young people supported through training, enterprise and platforms for community decision-making
- Increased participation of persons with disabilities in political and decision-making processes
- Contribution to the process behind the 2011 Persons with Disability Act
“Nothing about persons with disabilities without persons with disabilities.”
In practice
Making electoral processes more inclusive
With support from Trócaire and Liliane Fonds, WESOFOD-SL works with OneFamilyPeople, the Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues, the Political Party Registration Commission, the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone and political parties including the APC, SLPP and NGC — for equal rights and equal opportunities for persons with disabilities in electoral and political processes.
That covers internal political-party elections, lower-level and multi-tier elections, and the wider participation of persons with disabilities in governance and decision-making.
In practice
Fifty youth activists as inclusion ambassadors
A two-day National Disability Inclusion Training for Youth Activists brought together 50 youth activists, including young people with disabilities, from across Sierra Leone — building the knowledge, skills and confidence to become ambassadors for disability inclusion in their communities, institutions and advocacy platforms.
Delivered under MI-Chance with Mano River Youth Network and the Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues, funded by Christian Blind Mission.
