From Shaking Hands to Steady Voices
"Freedom is being your own person," Henrietta said. "If you just focus on what people want from you, you'll never find freedom."
She's twenty-two. Freetown, Sierra Leone. And she's talking about something deeper than just independence—about refusing to let society, or anyone else, define who she is or what she's worth. "Even if you're not perfect, just be good. You're loved, you're blessed, you're pure." A year ago, Henrietta's hands shook the first time she sat at Youth Dream Centre in Freetown. She'd never touched a keyboard. The instructor pulled up a chair. "You're the one with the computer. The computer is not using you." Now, one year later, she runs her own design business now. Flyers, posters. She was one of 1,391 young people—1,282 of them women—who learned digital skills across Freetown, Makeni, and Kono before Change the Game wrapped up this month.
The computers came in eight IT hubs. Forty machines. They went into community centers and schools where girls like Henrietta had been shut out of formal education. Some had never used a computer before. Many were almost scared to use them. The digital divide is real in Sierra Leone, especially for young women. But Dreamtown’s long time partner in Sierra Leone, Youth Dream Centre knew: digital literacy is a core skill now. It isn't something extra. In Sierra Leone's cities, those skills can be what stands between you and a new job opportunity. Between the informal and the formal sector.
From isolation to income
Mariama, in the city Kono, was the kind of person where even to speak to people was a challenge. She joined first the training and later the radio specifically to get rid of that fear. Now she volunteers at Voice of Kono 98.1 FM. People across the district recognize her voice.
She completed ICT training at YDC. Learned Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher. Now she makes flyers, designs materials. The computer skills that once made her feel insecure became tools she uses daily at the radio station. The women finishing ICT training design their own business flyers, post them to WhatsApp and Facebook, market products. They create invitation cards, certificates, receipts. They calculate budgets in Excel. The digital skills become survival tools the moment they're learned. No gap between theory and practice.
Speaking Up, Breaking Silence
Jeneba doesn't just sell clothes and save. She's in one of the Safety Groups in Freetown. She'd experienced gender-based violence—beaten and abused by someone she was in a relationship with. The loneliness was crushing. She thought if she spoke out, people would mock her, blame her. Then she joined the safety club and found belonging. "You feel belong whenever you are around your colleagues," she said. The training taught her about her rights. She learned she could say no. She confronted her abuser—not once, but continuously—until he listened.
Now she's one of the young women who went on radio in September to talk about gender-based violence. Messages reaching across districts. Fifty people responded. Fifteen texts, thirty-five calls. Some responses were encouraging, and some told the story of how the situation is severe around gender-based violence in Sierra Leone. One caller from Hastings said: girls must "dress well" to avoid rape. That comment alone explains why this work matters.
Over the project's final year, 634 survivors of gender-based violence got direct support. Partnerships with the Ministry of Gender and Children's Affairs, the Family Support Unit, Rainbow Centre, Legal Aid across all three cities. Dignity kits, transportation to court, medical help, stationery for police investigations, legal representation. Some cases made it to the police station. Others went to court. All of them represent young women and girls who refused to stay silent.
The Safety Groups brought prevention messages door-to-door: 2,576 people reached in the final year. Community dialogues in Freetown, Makeni, Kono. The approach: engage men and boys, challenge the norms, build safer spaces. When young women speak publicly about violence, when communities actually listen, culture starts to shift. Jeneba and others walk door-to-door now, sensitizing people about GBV, child abuse, early marriage. Sometimes people say "we don't want to hear." But they don't stop. "We will not stop, we will not relent," Jeneba said. "We will continue to sensitize them until we see so many changes in the community."
What Change Looks Like
Isatu is nineteen and lives in the city Makeni. Her parents didn't have money to send her to school. She wanted to know about computers but there was no way. Then she heard about YDC's free ICT program. Free of cost—that's what got her to join. First it was difficult. But as time went on, she felt happy. Before, she didn't know anything about computers. Even if you placed one in front of her, she thought pressing a button would "box up everything." Now she knows how to create folders, use Excel, Word, Publisher, print. She finished ICT training and started working at a printing shop near the Unimac University in Makeni. Youngest employee there. People admire her because she's very young to do that kind of job - and that makes her proud.
But she's also teaching basic computer skills to younger girls in her community. No pay. She does it because she remembers what being locked out felt like. "I want them also to be like me," she said. "When they learn they will be like me in the future." This is what Change the Game set out to do. Not just train young women, but create pathways from exclusion to leadership. The project doesn't call them beneficiaries. They're participants. Decision-makers. Advocates. Some, like the Safety Group members, are the ones on radio now, shaping conversations, challenging the norms that kept them silent.
The effects ripple out. Mr. Lebbie, line manager at the Family Support Unit in Kono, said the stationery support has been critical. Without it, investigations stall. Chief S.O. Gbeky at Legal Aid in Freetown said: Change the Game is the only organization consistently supporting them with materials. Case handling went up. Madam Sesay at Rainbow Initiative in Freetown noted the dignity kits for the fifteen residents in the safe home are making recovery possible.
It can sound like just logistics. But it is challenged infrastructure. Justice infrastructure in a context where government systems don’t deliver - and survivors face impossible barriers to report violence, access medical care, pursue legal cases.
The Bigger Picture
The women finishing ICT training, starting businesses, speaking up about violence — they're part of a bigger story, we want to tell. What happens when young women get tools, resources, platforms? They don't just use them for themselves. Mariama creates materials for other entrepreneurs. Isatu teaches computing to younger girls. Safety Group members go on radio to reach people they'll never meet. This is our theory of change in action: economic opportunity cuts vulnerability, digital skills open doors, public dialogue shifts norms. The project worked across all three. Skills alone won't protect a young woman facing violence at home. Safety initiatives won't matter as much if she has zero economic options.
Change the Game concluded in December 2025 after two years. By the end: 1,391 young people completed ICT training across three cities. One hundred women started or scaled businesses with entrepreneurship grants. Savings groups held share-outs. 634 survivors got direct support. 2,576 people heard prevention messages door-to-door. The training matters, and the skills matter. But the real success can't fit in numbers. It's in moments of transformation that go deeper than any certificate.
Change the Game is a partnership between Youth Dream Centre Sierra Leone, FANT Sierra Leone, Dreamtown, and FANT Denmark, running from October 2022 to December 2025 and supported by Børnenes U-landskalender, Danida and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Denmark.