Mobilizing Change: Musa Konneh’s Journey to Empower Young Mothers in Sierra Leone

Tasha: [00:00:00] Good morning can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your nonprofit origin story?

Musa Konneh: Yeah. Good evening because, this is the evening time to me.
Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here. My name is Musa Konneh. I’m a Sierra Leone and I’m also based in Sierra Leone. I’m a passionate person about community-led development, programs and also, women’s and girls empowerment by extension. And, I happen to be the founder for Movement for Education and Advocacy Network.
As a non-governmental registered, non-governmental organization that is based in Sierra Leone, that works with, young leaders, a network of young leaders here in Sierra Leone who are devoted to, supporting expectant, young mothers, girls and youth, with the skills, the resilience and knowledge.
That helps them to stand on their own feet and also help them to reach their fullest potential [00:01:00] here in Sierra Leone. So far so good. That’s what I do. That is the, just like an introduction of my organization. Yeah. In Sierra Leone. I love

Tasha: it. That’s fantastic. What inspired you to start a nonprofit?

Musa Konneh: What, inspired me because I see, the suffering of people, especially those that I really care for who are women and girls. I see the things that, they are going through, in terms of, marginalizations in the society. So that really motivate me as far as, I’m really passionate about them.
So that really motivate me to, come into the nonprofit.

Tasha: Amazing. And since you’ve started this nonprofit, what’s your favorite part about being in the nonprofit sector?

Musa Konneh: My favorite part has been, trying to provide, maybe, job opportunity for the young mothers and also trying to reintegrate them back into the societies that have denied [00:02:00] them.
Long time and people that have been seeing them as bad examples in society. Changing that negative has been one of the greatest thing that I really enjoy in this field.

Tasha: That’s amazing. And how many young mothers is your nonprofit serving in any given year?

Musa Konneh: It depends on the resources that we have at a particular time.
Of course, if it comes to the number of guys that needs the types of, services that we are rendering, it’s mind blowing, but it also going down to the available resources that we have at a particular time. It determines the number of girls that we work with.
So most of the time we work with 25 girls, sometimes 19 girls. It depends, on the types of funding that we got.

Tasha: That’s totally fair. And maybe this leads in nicely to my next question because I always like to ask leaders, particularly founders like yourself, what are some of the biggest challenges in running a [00:03:00] nonprofit?

Musa Konneh: To me, I think, the universal one is, the funding because that is universal to any other nonprofits as far as I’m concerned. And, now if I want to tie down to me has been like, the technology can know-how and how to really see how we can amplify the types of work that we’re doing.
You might be doing great job, but if most people do not know about it, it’s really hard for you to grow. Amplifying our work, like handling the social media handlings, like having a website or fortunately we don’t have a website. And, most of the time when we meet people, it has to take me a long time to really explain to them what exactly I’m doing and what are the types of impacts we’re making.
And also, the impact measurement is another challenge as well. And this feed, as far as I’m concerned, and also how we collaboration. Collaboration has been also, a key challenge because, like, most nonprofit, fund. Want to own on their own ideas. They don’t want to share that idea, especially if they have the idea where they are getting funding.
They hardly share that [00:04:00] particular thing with other people. And, the expectations that comes that most people have around, the collaboration has been also a key challenge as far as I’m concerned in this speed. Yeah. And also, the perception change of people when you talk about no profit, in my own context here in Sierra Leone.
It’s a bit different because, people think that the nonprofit organizations most of the time have all the money in the world. So most of which is not the case. Yeah. It’s totally not the case. We are really struggling, but that’s some of the concept that people have. So to change that, is also another challenge for us as well,

Tasha: Culturally in Sierra Leone.
You know, here in Canada, nonprofits are often covering a lot of services that governments used to cover. Is that similar in Sierra Leone?

Musa Konneh: Yeah. We, yes, exactly. We complement the efforts of government. There are areas that they don’t reach. We also have to reach to those [00:05:00] areas. So we complement the effort of government in Sierra Leone, so we walk side by side as well. Especially like in passing down informations and also rendering services because they cannot able to do everything.
So we complement their efforts as well. Yeah.

Tasha: Okay. Yeah, because I do even find here in Canada, there are many who misunderstand what nonprofits are doing. Right. Even the general. Population here in the United States. It seems to be common all over the world that people don’t really understand what nonprofits are doing or they think that they’re completely funded by government.
And so, you’re so right. I think we really need to change how people are looking at nonprofits.

Musa Konneh: Yes, I agree with you.

Tasha: Yeah. One of the questions I always love to ask during these interviews is, how are you finding peer support and how are you getting the support you need to grow as a leader?

Musa Konneh: [00:06:00] Well, one of the thing that I have, where it’s natural about me is about mobilization. That’s one of my strengths here in mobilizing people to stand up for a particular cause that will also bring change in their life and the communities where they live. So my engagement with young people and also community stakeholders, has really been helping me really to, either retain volunteers that works for the organizations and also to bring other peoples on board that, really matters. Like you talk about the traditional leaders, you talk about religious leaders because they are really key, to some of, our work.
Because if we talk about the family tracing and reunification programs, these are some key difficult, it has some challenges. In terms of, people who have already denied, like they have driven their child out of the house because of she has been pregnant at a very early age, bringing back that child to that particular, home, you need a lot of, steps that you have to follow.
First we start seeing it. We are getting some challenges, so I have to see it and ensure that I [00:07:00] have to really engage, the people. Into the programs, into all of our activities from the starting the middle and even at the implementation stage as well. So that has been really helping us, including the people and making it community led has really helped us.
And that is really, pushing our programs, forward.

Tasha: That’s fantastic. And I think that is something that many nonprofit leaders struggle with mobilization. So how did you learn the skills to be somebody? Is this a personality trait? Is this something you had training for? How do you mobilize people?

Musa Konneh: I mobilized people because as far as I’m concerned, I know that, everybody, around the world or each and every individual has their own, I can say self-esteem, things that they really believe in. So like I see and really observe people and what they really love or they want to see themselves doing , and how they want.
To be seen in that particular community. So that is how I create the things around them and [00:08:00] encourage them to comment in. For Stan, let me just take an example. There’s a youth leader in one of the communities, where I’m working and he’s really contributing greatly to the Community Gas network.
He loves people to really recognize him. Like whenever people gather. He always want to be hard speaking, so like creating that particular ways and means for him to be always seen speaking to people. So that really motivates him to come because he’s not getting paid.
But because of that, he think he has really achieved what he had wanted to get in that particular. Particular community because he had wanted to be recognized that he’s doing certain things that people do not know. So these are some of the way I do to really mobilize, people. And I do a lot of, engagement, one-on-one engagement, community outreach programs to tell them about the work that I’m doing.
What would be the important, if they give their support, how we can make it, how that particular programs can be sustainable because I’m not going to be there. But the greater one has been like really [00:09:00] making it own by them. Yeah, by the community people. So they are involved in everything, so they see it as their own.
That is how I have able to really mobilize people, right across. We are working here in Sierra Leon.

Tasha: I think you touched on something really important there, and I think it is that many community engagement members do want ownership, right? They wanna feel that what they’re doing. Has deep meaning.
And so I love how as a leader you are giving them that opportunity because definitely, I think too many, founders, too many leaders hold really tight to control. And it’s actually when we start being community led that we see growth and engagement.

Musa Konneh: Exactly. Exactly.

Tasha: So you’ve been a member of the nonprofit hive for quite a while now.
Do you know how many conversations you’ve taken?

Musa Konneh: Yeah. I have taken, now as it stands, I’ve taken [00:10:00] like 15 conversation with different people right across the globe, which is really key.

Tasha: You’ve taken 41?

Musa Konneh: 41.

Tasha: 41.

Musa Konneh: Oh, I just. Yeah, that’s great.

Tasha: 41 conversations. I know I always like to say to our members who’ve been very engaged like yourself.
I like to tell them because almost everybody doesn’t think they’ve done that many conversations. So I always like to surprise people and go, no, this is how many, so thank you. You’ve been a member for quite some time. What’s your favorite part of being part of the nonprofit hive community?

Musa Konneh: The key thing I really love about is that, we’re bridging the gaps, between, other people in other country and with us. I never knew that there are other people in Africa who are also doing, who are young people like me because there are other people, but young leaders like me who are also doing great job.
So I only came to know that through the [00:11:00] nonprofit hive and the key things that I was talking to Simon one day. I say, this program is really key. They have really teach us some things like how to bring ourself together and also ensure we do collaboration strongly and also see how we can exchange idea.
The exchange of those ideas is really key to me. And now we have the impact of Africa, which is really key, which is on now, bringing most of those, who have been part of the IFI programs to really, start meeting together and also see how we can team up together for certain, developmental programs.
So that is really key. The unity, the bridge, that bridge it has really bridged a lot of things. A lot of things that people have been owning in terms of like sharing of idea, experience sharing is very key as far as I’m concerned for the nonprofit. So I’m really grateful to have been part of it.
And, we have now got like a particular project out of it, but we have got a lot of link, which is also key as well. There are people we meet on the hive. We don’t have the [00:12:00] same synergy. There’s no synergy, but they have connections to the calls that you are doing.
So I have met somebody who is not trying to see how she can link me. She have already linked me to one, lady in the us and we are on the foot and back to see exactly how they can support our work. So that is really key.

Tasha: That’s wonderful. I love to hear that.
And I do think too often in nonprofit, and this seems to be that way, in every country, anybody I’ve talked to anywhere in the world, this work can feel very lonely. Right? Especially if you’re in a smaller nonprofit, the work is often lonely, right? And it’s hard work. So I think it’s really important that we stay connected globally.
To each other so that we can realize, no, this work is challenging wherever you are. And it can be so empowering to hear that is the case, right? Regardless of where you are. And I’m glad to hear about those opportunities. That’s amazing. Final thing, always like to finish up these, [00:13:00] remind us again, name of your nonprofit and the services you offer, because I’m gonna make sure to put those, in the link notes afterwards and make sure to share about your nonprofit to everybody.

Musa Konneh: Yeah. The name of my nonprofit is Movement for Education and Advocacy Network, Sierra Leon or Salone. We provide educational support to young mother and Expectants and also, women in general, in the area of childcare support. We do family tracing and reunification, programs, and also we do livelihood, program with them as well.
And now we are embarking on, rural community, educational programs because we have really found out that most of the girls are coming from the rural areas to come to the over settings to look out for opportunities, especially in the area of, ski training. So we do ski trainings both in the apprenticeship sectors and also on, form vocational programs as well, where we send the guests to go and land and ensure also, that they have a decent [00:14:00] job that can able to, feel part of life and able to take care of themself and the girls, and their children and the kids that they have because.
The girls that we’re working with, they don’t have any men that have ever answered for the pregnancy, so they have to struggle all by themself. So that has been a very big hassle and that is the reason why we are not just advocating for an empowerment, but also engineer A through, education skills, trainings and job opportunities here in Sierra Leone.
So, that is what we do.

Tasha: I love it. Thank you so much for doing this interview with me, and thank you for, your continued belief that community for nonprofit professionals is important. We’re so lucky to have you as a member of our community.

Musa Konneh: Thank you so much. I do appreciate your effort, and I I’m really happy that I have crossed back with you and, the type of things that you have exposed me and my organization to.
I think, the people that we are working with and the people that we care for, really appreciate your effort because I have told them a lot [00:15:00] about the nonprofit hive and the things that we have been doing, the people that I have met, and that we are hopeful that one day we’ll get a very big support from the nonprofit hive, which is really key.
And we are looking forward. Maybe one day you’ll visit Sierra Leone to see your great job that you have done and your effort. I really appreciate you for that. Thank you. So thank you.