The Fund for Global Human Rights (The Fund) and Purposeful partnered together to co-design and pilot ‘Tar Kura’, a participatory grant-making initiative in Sierra Leone. Tar Kura means ‘new fire’ in Koranko, Kono, and Mandingo, three of the local languages. The fire that the initiative aims to ignite in children and young people by placing them at the centre of children’s rights grant-making, programme implementation, and learning. For the past two years, Purposeful and The Fund have worked together to analyse how to meaningfully include girls and youth in designing and running a participatory fund. The collaboration also involved better understanding the needs, realities, and challenges of youth-led activism in Sierra Leone.

In 2020, IWORDS Global -through its IWORDS Consulting unit- was commissioned to evaluate these efforts, using a participatory approach.  Through interviews, a survey, and a reflection journal, the evaluation sought to reflect on the grant-making process and its immediate impact on youth engaged through it. It aimed to reflect on the successes and opportunities for improvement of the process and to make recommendations for future participatory grant-making processes with children and youth. Much like the Tar Kura initiative, the evaluation was committed to placing youth at the centre and, thus, included four young women from Sierra Leone as full members of the evaluation team. 

Learn more about Tar Kura and access the evaluation findings here.