This project will be implemented by Centre of Dialogue on Human Settlement and Poverty Alleviation (CODOHSAPA) in collaboration with members of the Sierra Leone Union Disability Issues (SLUDI) which had had a wealth of experience in mobilizing and working with persons with disabilities (PWDs). The vulnerable groups the project will directly affect will include women, children and men with disabilities of all categories such as Polio, Amputees, and kyphoscoliosis, Paralytics, Visually impaired, Hearing impaired, mental disability, Intellectual disability, Albinism, Autism and Little people.

The main objective of this project is ?to contribute to empowering persons with disabilities in Sierra Leone.? This is articulated in the National Development Plan (NDP) and Transform Freetown Agenda current national and Freetown City Council governments, respectively. This project will therefore complement the efforts of the government to achieve the above mentioned result.

The project has two specific objectives it intends to achieve as follows:
SPO 1: To support persons with disabilities develop sustainable economic activities within the Western Area.
SPO 2: To support PWDs to drive their own development agendas through savings and credit management actions
In the Western Area which is the project location, there are 11,933 PWDs (6,625 males and 5,308 females)2 which is 12.8% of the national figure. With experience working with PWDs, SLUDI estimates that about 70% of this cohort are street beggars, with no or limited productive means of livelihood and access to social services. Majority of them lack formal education, skill to gain employment, lack service and equipment to aid their disability, lack access to social services including health, housing and justice, etc. The limited opportunities they have a tremendous knock-on effect on their families. Most of them cannot afford to send their children to school and in fact they (the children) have to accompany their parents who are PWDs to beg on the street which prevent them from going to school or be involved in any other reliable productive discipline. As a result, the future of these children remains bleak, and carry the potential to be involved in anti-social enterprises, such as drug and substance trafficking and abuse, prostitution, robbery and other crimes in the future. On the other hand, their livelihood actions may not be anti-social per se, but may not be environmentally-friendly, such as wood-cutting for firewood and charcoal production, hunting, poor sewage disposal due to poor access WASH facilities, etc. This may have grave consequences on the biodiversity in both the medium and long terms if their current challenges are not addressed or their needs met now. This project is meant to strengthen and fast track the process, by providing and supporting capacity building opportunities. Based on consultation conducted, it was unanimously agreed by majority of DPO heads within the western urban that a bakery enterprise is a preferred alternative livelihood