Teams4U is thrilled to announce our exciting new partnership with Speak & Win as part of our Develop with Dignity Programme. Speak & Win specialises in helping individuals of all ages and backgrounds grow in confidence and beat the fear of speaking. Speak & Win empowers people to express themselves openly and equips them with communication skills.

Encouraging people to speak up for their needs and to challenge normalised GBV is part of our Develop with Dignity programme. In the areas we work in Sierra Leone, only 18% of girls finish Secondary School, with 67% dropping out due to menstruation or pregnancy. To turn these statistics around, we believe that girls and boys need knowledge to make informed life choices, the confidence to make and pursue their goals, support from teachers, nurses, peers and the provision of sanitary packs.

Si Valentine, founder of Speak & Win, has been coaching Helga Sellu, director of Teams4U Sierra Leone. Helga is sharing her new skills with teachers at our vocational colleges and the Develop with Dignity team. We’re excited to see how this will impact our projects and the thousands of students who participate each year. We hope to see a boost to students’ confidence, mental wellbeing and resilience to better face life’s challenge.

Helga, speaking from her own experience, acknowledges that many young people lack the confidence to speak because of the hardships they’ve endured. They feel that if they speak up, people will make fun of them, and they are afraid of judgement and humiliation. Those who have experienced abuse frequently find it extremely difficult to speak out because they are afraid of being stigmatised.

In the future, we hope that Si and his team will work directly with our students and trainers to promote confident and effective communication. We are helping young people build a brighter future, where having the confidence to speak to trusted adults and peers brings social change and fosters healthy communication and support networks.