The Sierra Leone Minister of Basic Education, David Moinina Sengeh launched his book on radical inclusion. By radical he meant that the girl child should be allowed to get the education they need no matter the situation they might be in. He was backing on his fight against the lift the decade-old ban on allowing pregnant girls in school.

As it required courage to speak up, speak out, and persuade a president to change his views and his policies, the Minister fought for pregnant girls be allowed in schools. Sengeh played an instrumental role in Sierra Leone’s shift to include pregnant girls in the classroom and give them a chance to succeed. The book explained his experience towards that fight. It’s part parable, part practical guide to changing the systems that perpetuate exclusion in everyday life. And like all roadmaps, David Sengeh’s, begins at home.

In the interview, he explained how he grew up in a home of other siblings that were taken care of by his parents and his love for football and the guitar. When asked about his experience during the war at his younger age, he said that he remembered meeting with child soldiers on their way going with his parent. The things these soldiers were doing he will wish no child will do such ever again. He said, “As a teenager I saw people who were amputees”.

When asked what triggered him to push through with encouraging the President to lift the ban on pregnant girl not allowed in school he said, “President Bio were pushing through with his free quality education, and there was this big epidemic about rape and teenage pregnancy, and he declared an emergency on rape and began to fix that. And then there were issues around sanitary hygiene that the first lady was working on that, and the president became a champion on that as well, when president Bio himself said that pregnant girls should not go to school, he was going to continue a 10 year old ban so he didn’t start the ban it was there 10 years ago, but he publicly said on the day that I became minister that coincidentally you know we are going to continue this and I was in the audience and I was like what? I am going to be the one who is going to be doing this, and we had a conversation……. He said if you found me pregnant girls that you talk to and learn from them I will be willing to listen and that gave me hope. Over the months we engage parent, teachers ……. We found out that you cannot victimize a victim already”

He sees pregnant girls below 18 as rape victims because they cannot give consent as they are below the consented age. And he said we cannot look at the rape victims and punish them because they were raped and keep them out of school. This was the fundamental he used in convincing the President to lift the ban.