By Brima Grant – Moonlight Radio 104.5FM Bo (ATJLF/MRCG Fellow 2026)
Mohamed (not his real name) has been jobless for the last two years since graduating from college. A graduate in Social Work, he was full of hope when he left Njala University. To take care of his needs, the 27-year-old has taken to selling drugs.
“I sell Tramadol and sometimes Kush so that I can eat every day because I have no job,” he says.
Mohamed is one of the thousands of young men and women who leave college and university every year in Sierra Leone. Njala University alone, in 2024, graduated 3,568 people. The result of a 2023 survey by the Advocacy Network for Community Development (ANCD) in Sierra Leone showed that only 30% of graduates nationally were able to secure employment as of 2022. The survey was conducted across six university campuses in the country – FBC, IPAM, Njala, MMCET, Unimak, and EBK University. And according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), unemployment among young people in general in the country stands at 70%.
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