Executive Director’s Message
 
Hello supporters and friends of AdvocAid,

In September, I was privileged to take on the role as Executive Director and join the passionate and dedicated team at AdvocAid. These last few months have been full of achievements – I’d like to highlight just a few:  

• Following the 2017 local launch of our documentary that gives voice to sex workers ‘Kolonko’, this December we launched the documentary online to make it accessible to a wider audience. You can watch it on our YouTube channeland read an article published by the UK Guardian.  
• New funding has enabled us to contract three new Duty Counsel lawyers. As a result, AdvocAid is able to provide free legal representation for women and girls at courts in Makeni, Port Loko, Kenema, Bo, Waterloo and Ross Road, in addition to the critical on-going legal assistance from our team of paralegals. 
• This funding has also enabled us to hire three full-time social workers, based at AdvocAid’s Freetown, Makeni and Kenema offices. These social workers advocate for the welfare of women and girls in detention, and provide critical emotional and psychological support to our clients. This includes individual counselling and group psycho-social sessions at correctional centres.
• This December, AdvocAid provided welfare packages to all female detainees in Freetown, Makeni, Magburaka, Port Loko, Kenema and Bo, as well as children detained at the Freetown Remand Home and Approved School. This package included basic health and sanitary items and supplementary food items. 
• During the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence, AdvocAid had unique access to interview women in the Freetown Female Correctional Centre about their experiences of GBV. These interviews have been produced into a series of short films, entitled ‘Voices from Inside.’ The first in the series is now on our Facebook page. 

I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our paralegals, social workers, duty counsel lawyers, programme and finance staff, committed volunteers, and supporters far and wide. 

AdvocAid is only able to support women and girls in conflict with the law through the generous support of our donors.  Please consider making a donation to AdvocAid through our GlobalGiving page. If you sign up as a recurring donor during December, Global Giving will match your donation each month from April onwards – so if you sign up this month to donate $10 a month, from April AdvocAid will receive $20 a month.

On behalf of the AdvocAid team and the women and girls who received our assistance in 2018, we thank you for your support and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Rebecca Wood
Executive Director