Honour before Honours’ has paid a very good dividend to the Human Rights Giant, Executive Director of the Legal Aid Board Siewrra Leone, Mrs Fatmata Claire Carlton-Hanciles, a product of the Methodist Girls High School.

Honour before Honours’ has paid a very good dividend to the Human Rights Giant, Executive Director of the Legal Aid Board Sierra Leone, Mrs Fatmata Claire Carlton-Hanciles, a product of the Methodist Girls High School.

The National Opinion Pools Sierra Leone, a network of online contributors, has recognized Mrs Fatmata Claire-Hanciles as a ‘Woman of Substance’, at a Certification Ceremony held on Tuesday 8^th March, The International Women’s Day. The colourful ceremony took place at the MAS Entertainment Complex, Calaba Town. Some 40 women of substance were recognized for their good contributions to their communities, for which hundreds of relatives, friends and acquaintances happily cheered them.

Mrs Fatmata Carlton-Hanciles is a role model to women and girls in Sierra Leone.

 The Calaba Town community was the first community to benefit from the mandate of the Legal Aid Board. The Alternative Dispute Resolution Method was applied to solve the dispute between the police and the youths of the Calaba Town Community. The parents were in desperate need of help, to save fourteen teenagers from going to jail. Mrs Carlton-Hanciles and her team saved the boys. Some of them might have been innocently incarcerated. They were caught in a police raid. The ‘fuller for fuller’ method was used. Sending them to jail would have been a dishonour to their community, their parents, and even their own future. Legal Aid gave them back their honour.

Hundreds of people who had been dishonoured either by the preferring of the wrong charges by the police, false witnessing, hate, bad neighbourliness, jealously, etc. etc. Mrs Carlton-Hanciles and her team bring honour to their lives and door steps by seeking a discharge for them. More people are being dishonoured now as you are reflecting. Many of those who have been discharged were at the brink of death, either by sickness or from a broken heart. They were not only given back their lives; they were also given back their honour.

As people are different in nature, so are their circumstances; some fall on rocky grounds, some on sandy ground, while some fall among thorns.

If you happen to have fallen on good soil, why not shear some of your good soil with others. How does it begin? It begins with compassion. Compassion brings honour, and honour brings honour.

Join the Legal Aid Board Sierra Leone to honour those who might not have fallen on favourable soil, and God, if not man, will honour you. Come and shear your honour with them.

Come and find out what you can about the Board, or talk to your Citizen’s Advisory Bureau in your Ward. Your Ward Councillor should be able to help you. Come to our offices at 1^st Floor, Guma Building, Lamina Sankoh Street, in Freetown; you are most welcome.

Derek Nat-George

Head of Media and Public Relations