By Jenneh Braima
With support fromENCISS, astate and non-state actor interface organization, civil society organisations have concluded a one-day validation forum on the outcome of their previous engagement with Western Area civil society groups.
Representative of Christian Aid, Kadie Jumu noted that it was a challenge for all CSOs to make good use of the validation forum so that they could come up with formidable resolutions and vote for ten Western Area representatives on the ENCISS Board.
She commended the Freetown team for their dedication and commitment to ensuring that they pushed activism forward, and assured them that her organisation would continue to providesupport to them.
This assurance was reechoed by the programme officer of ENCISS in the Western Area, Hellen Duffy. She said the mapping, validation and voting forum would go a long way to enabling CSOs examine outcomes of previous months but also prioritise them for effective post regional CSO forum engagement with stakeholders.
She appealed to them to come up with ten names – five men and five women - to represent the Western Area CSOs at the National CSO Forum, and called on them to continue their advocacy, learning and sharing of the previous CSO communiqué they presented to the president.
In her presentation, the Chief Executive Officer of CISPAN-SL, Elizabeth Alpha-Lavali, spoke lengthily on partnership and inclusion and encouraged participants to take issues discussed at the forum importantly. She revealed that there was every need for the government to expand and relocate the Pademba Road maximum prisons to a better location that was out of the city.
Mrs Lavalie noted that there was need for Justices of the Peace to be adequately trained on legal issues so that they could do their job adequately, as their knowledge on legal issues was limited. She also called for an increased budgetary allocation to members of parliament, the police and judiciary.
Presentations were also made on safety, security and access to justice, education, information and awareness-raising, capability, legislation and disability.
