GESL Team
Fatmata is 20 years old and attended Methodist Girls High School and Excel International High School. She loves singing, dancing, and creative art work.
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She wants to be a voice to all voices that have been shut down and give them back their courage, confidence and boldness to speak up as girls - no matter the situation around them.
Fatmata is 19 years old and attended St. Joseph Secondary School. She likes singing, dancing, and reading novels and adventure stories.
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She wants to see girls minimize self-criticism. She wants to sensitize girls, show them they can do what a boy can only better, and girls can become engineers and other "boy"-focused jobs.
Kadiatu attends Ahmadiyya Muslim Senior Secondary School. She likes telling stories, reading and singing.
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She wants to stand up for girls’ rights, fight for a brighter future for girls, and encourage them to do positive things with their lives.
Fatmata Bayoh
Peer Facilitator
Fatmata Binta Turay
Peer Facilitator
Kadiatu T. Mansaray
Peer Facilitator
Peer Facilitators
Isatu is 18 years old and enjoys singing, reading, dancing, and giving advice to girls. Her goal is to help girls be who they want to be and not what society tells them they have to be.
She wants to see girls work in a safe space without them being sexually, mentally, or physically abused. She wants young teen mothers to be able to go school - pregnancy should not be the end of their lives. She aims to speak up for them to not give up.
Isha is 18 years old and attended St. Joseph’s Convent School. She likes dancing and learning new skills.
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She aims to show girls that they can open up and be ready to voice the challenges they face. She believes keeping silence won’t gain the justice girls deserve, and she aims to always advocate for girls to express themselves.
Isatu Nabrilla Sesay
Peer Facilitator
Isha Sesay
Peer Facilitator
Rebecca Hudi-Turay
Country Director
In-Country Team
Rebecca is a Management Professional with over 10 years cumulative work experience, with a passion for innovation and problem-solving.
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She utilizes strong communication and collaborative skills to establish individual and collective needs to plan and support results-driven decision making.
Rebecca has a wealth of experience in learning, research and development in Leadership, ICT, Entrepreneurship and Monitoring and Evaluation.
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Rebecca is a passionate advocate for social change and she has successfully collaborated in STEM education and advocacy, and other capacity-building initiatives that have transformed and empowered communities.
Rebecca Hudi-Turay
Country Director
Adama holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology from Fourah Bay College University of Sierra Leone. She serves as GESL's Program Coordinator, and has been with GESL since April of 2019.
Adama Sesay
Program Coordinator
Mariama Jimmy serves as Girls Empowerment Sierra Leone's Programme Officer.
Mallam AB Jalloh serves as GESL's Admin and Finance
Coordinator.
Imran is currently the Accounting Supervisor for the leading cooking gas company in Sierra Leone. He serves as GESL's Finance Officer.
Mariama Jimmy
Programme Officer
Mallam AB Jalloh
Admin/Finance
Coordinator
Imran Kamara
Finance Officer
GESL Advisory Board
Rukayah is Girls Empowerment Sierra Leone’s Board Chair. In addition to her role with GESL, Rukayah has held various board positions with heritage institutions and think tanks in the UK.
Rukayah is a professional advocate and campaigner, and has more than fifteen years of experience leading award-winning campaigns on a range of issues including education, ending violence against girls and environmental sustainability.
She is extremely passionate about the arts, and the power that art formations have in enriching people’s lives and wellbeing. She has published essays on music, visual arts and literature for publications including ShowStudios and academic journals.”
Moiyattu is an International Consultant on women and girls' rights, and a professor of Women and Gender Studies at Temple University and Columbia University.
Moiyattu is Co-Founder & Executive Director of GESL.
Serving as In-Country Advisor, Maryam Darwich is part of GESL’s founding team since 2014. She has a strong background working with young people which has included projects in the UK, the Middle East and Africa.
Maryam is a capacity development specialist with 10+ years experience in managing multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder projects in the NGO, private and public sectors. Specialising in conducting organisational assessments, developing and implementing strategies and supporting and designing development interventions, Maryam has been recognised for her ability to design human centred interventions.
Moiyattu Banya-Keister
Founder/Director
Maryam Darwich
A founding member since 2012 serving as GESL's Communications Lead, Stephanie is a four-time Emmy, Peabody and ACE Eddie Award-winning Film Editor, Producer and Activist. She is also one of the co-founders of End Ebola Now, an organization created in 2014 to spread accurate information and awareness about the Ebola Virus and its impact through artistic community activism.
Stephanie spends much of her spare time producing and editing social action campaigns and documentaries, primarily focused on the rights of women and girls worldwide.Some of her notable campaigns include her work with the United Nations, International Labour Organization, and the Obama White House Task Force's It's On Us campaign to combat campus sexual assault. Her charitable work has been featured in Forbes Magazine, Entertainment Tonight, Telegraph UK, Yahoo, Al Jazeera, XWhy Magazine, and various others.
Rukayah Sarumi
Violet Asgill is a Human Resources specialist with over 20 years’ experience in Managing and Building
Human Resources functions within organisations.
Her expertise is in Change Management and
Organisational Development. Over the years, she has worked both within the UK and Sierra Leone
on Capacity building projects for young people. In Sierra Leone Violet has developed and ran a number of skills development projects for young people and work with main
stream governmental organisations, NGO’s and private sector organisations in curricula
development as well as facilitating these programs Violet is one of the founders of the Freetown
Business School where she sits on the Board. She is also a Board Member of Samstead High
elementary and secondary school. Violet has a passion for developing young people and has
established a number of CSR programmes to support this agenda.
Stephanie Filo-Jones
Violet Asgill
Ghina Wansa
A passionate advocate for education and girls’ empowerment, Ghina Wansa is a serving board
member of Girls Empowerment Sierra Leone. Ghina has a vast experience in entrepreneurship,
strategic planning, performance optimization and change management, with a current focus on
developing strategies to promote human development through initiatives that align talent strategies with business objectives, fostering growth, and enhancing overall employee and organizational success.
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With a background in psychology, Ghina has worked with several organizations and NGOs in
Lebanon and Sierra Leone over the years that champion education as a transformative power to shape a brighter future for our world.