What a woman can do with education in the new Sierra Leone

Frances – aka Baby K – or just BK – is both typical and atypical of young women in small towns of Sierra Leone like Rotifunk.  She’s a single mother of two small children.  That’s very common for a woman to be left with bringing up her children herself.  She’s a small business woman, a small trader as they call it here.  You go to bigger towns or to farms and buy things to resell at home in small lots in the local market.  This is also very common for women in Sierra Leone to be “working women” and small entrepreneurs.

Now Baby K is also a budding politician and women’s leader in the new Sierra Leone of women empowerment.  This is not common, at least, not yet.  Baby K is catching up quickly, and showing the way for other women. 
Baby K is tall and attractive – even statuesque.  I’m five foot nine and not used to looking Sierra Leonean women in the eye.  But I see eye to eye with Baby K, in more ways than one.  She’s tall, she’s clever, and she engages you directly like a peer. No self-deprecating demeanor for Baby K. She’s someone you notice and will remember. 

Baby K is the youngest of six children of Aunt Josephine, and a cousin the Paramount Chief.  Everyone in a place like Rotifunk is related to everyone else in one way or another.  Being in the chief’s extended family, doesn’t however ensure the easy life. (It doesn’t for the chief either, an unpaid position.) Baby K lives in a household of women.  Women helping women, the same the world over.
 

Baby K’s mother is head of the household and a widow.  Sister-in-law Magdeline also lives with them, the sweetest woman you’d ever want to meet.  Her husband is off in Freetown trying to learn a new profession, and Magdeline is at home responsible for their two kids. Together, these women live in a house made of packed mud with thatched roof.  Everyone had to rebuild after the war, when all buildings were torched and burned by rebels who occupied the town.  Townspeople returned and rebuilt as best they could.

Gregarious, you find Baby K reeling you into a conversation in a friendly way.  She has a charming drawl, like someone from Nahhhwlins. Except it’s a West African lilt, not a NOLA dialect.  Hers is a little raspy and breathy, which draws you in closer to listen. Pretty soon she’s chatting you up, like any good saleswoman would do.

Baby K is a born businesswoman. She runs the equivalent of a local pharmacy, because there is none in Rotifunk.  If you’re at the hospital and need a certain medication, like antibiotics, it’s not uncommon for the staff to send families out to find it. Money is short, and hospitals can barely stock essentials like sterile needles. So people seek out someone like Baby K for their medications.  Baby K saw a need when her town was being resurrected from the post war ashes of rebel destruction, and she filled it.  She made a for-profit business out of this.  Her profit.  She’s good at what she’s does.  She knows her customers and what they need, and what’s a fair price.  From this she manages to make a living for herself and her family.

I found Baby K to be quite knowledgeable about the drugs she sells.  She knows about basic ailments like any good pharmacist.  You come to her and tell her what ails you, and she will fix you up.  She has a lot of OTC stuff, but also some things only sold by prescription in the U.S. That’s not uncommon in developing countries. I listened to people coming to her saying, my head hurts, my stomach hurts. She asks a few questions, and then tells you what she can do for you.  Or maybe you come for regular “refills” for things like birth control pills and malaria medication. 

Baby K completed part of secondary school, but never finished.  The war interrupted a lot of things.  And her babies came, as well.  Still in her 20's, she parlayed her basic education into being a successful entrepreneur.  I found Baby K reads fairly well, and understands what she reads.  The two don’t always go together here.  People like Baby K clearly illustrate that smarts is not only about being book smart.  She is life smart. 

Now Baby K is becoming a woman leader in town and the district, by running for Councilor of the district’s Local Council.  Local Councils were installed after the war to systematically reestablish local government services in a country that had all its local institutions destroyed.  They are vehicles for managing key local services like water and waste management, education, health services, roads and infrastructure, and community development. In a rural area like Rotifunk, it’s kind of a combination of County government and some city council services we see in the States.

Baby K’s district includes five “sections,” so it extends well beyond Bumpeh Chiefdom where she lives.  She had to go out and make herself known to run in the primary and win her party’s nomination.  One good thing about being the newcomer and a woman is you don’t have to follow the way the good old boys do things.

To make herself known, Baby K organized a women’s football “gala.” In places where there’s little in the way of entertainment, sports are big. So, she set up a fun event where school girls played football (soccer) against other school girls.  And she organized women playing football and competing with other women. Women playing football is uncommon in Sierra Leone, and this brought in a lot of people to enjoy an event they probably never saw before. Baby K had to solicit the needed funds and pulled off a successful gala.

The event drew attention to women empowerment as well, a big theme for this year’s elections in Sierra Leone.  Women may long have been marginalized in Sierra Leone, but they are gaining ground as the current President and other country leaders strongly advocate for women in government positions. 

Many have called for requiring 30% of elected government roles be filled by women to create a more level playing field.  It hasn’t (yet) been put into legislation, but Sierra Leone would not be the first country to do this. Of the 20 top-ranked countries in terms of female representation in government, 17 use some sort of quota system to ensure female inclusion, from Rwanda to Sweden.

When I called Baby K to congratulate her on winning the primary, I asked whose idea was it to run.  People asked her to run, she said.  I could see those people – men and women - viewed Baby K as someone who gets things done.  Things that benefit the community.  She speaks up and speaks well.  And they know she is a successful businesswoman who is providing an important community service as the only “pharmacy” in town.  This is someone they’d like to see representing them in the local council.

So, Baby K is out now campaigning in other towns and chiefdoms, making herself known and making the case that she deserves to represent them as district local councilor.  Women in Sierra Leone, as in many other countries, are seen as having some built in credibility.  They’re focused on improving their communities for their families and more likely to be above corruption.

Baby K’s a candidate for the majority party in this district, so I will not be surprised to see her installed as a district local councilor next year.  Success breeds success.  She’s a winner.

Baby K’s done a lot with her limited education.  She's part of the new generation of Sierra Leone women who want to succeed beyond traditional roles.  She’s passing through old barriers as fast as the doors are cracked open.