Amb. Ernest Mbaimba Ndomahina, the Commissioner of the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA ) has on the 27th May, 2024 mobilized women to boost self-help and add to the Feed Salone initiative.  

This came in response to the clarion call by President Julius Maada Bio, for every Sierra Leonean to work towards the realization of sustainable food security in the country, for which the commissioner brought together  women from different livelihood activities to sensitize and organize them to work together to be economically viable in Taiama, Kori Chiefdom, Moyamba District,

He gathered an approximate number of 200 women who represented 19 groups from across the Taiama township and its environs to ensure that their groups were well structured so that they could benefit from various opportunities offered by NaCSA and other development partners including non-governmental organizations.

He called on them to do the needful in making the way-out in their different communities in actualization of the self-developed well-being adding that, President Maada Bio’s vision for Sierra Leone is that the nation should grow what it eat and eat what it grows as that may lead to sustainable food self sufficiency, maintaining that, the intervention is part of the Sierra Leone Community Driven Development (SLCDD) project funded by the Islamic Development Bank and the Government of Sierra Leone.

In her statement representing the other women, the women’s leader, Theresa G Kamara, thanked the commissioner for his interest in the empowerment of rural women as well as informed him and his team from NaCSA that the women were undertaking various livelihood activities, and that most of the groups were in agriculture, growing mostly rice, cassava, potato, and vegetables.

The Programme Manager of the SLCDD Project, Momoh Juanah, who facilitated the meeting explained to the women that their groups were required to have executives, group bylaws, registration certificates and bank accounts for them to operate with NaCSA and other development partners.

The women were presented a sum of Ten Thousand New Leones (Le10,000) to the group leaders to facilitate the registration of the groups and to open group accounts with rural financial institutions in the chiefdom, adding that, registering their groups and opening bank accounts will enable them to access finance from institutions, to grow and expand their farming and other livelihood activities.