Summary. David Joseph Allieu's story is one of selflessness, dedication, and compassion that has touched uncountable lives in his community of Kenema and other areas of Sierra Leone. For over two decades, Allieu has worked as a civil society and human rights activist. He has focused on the marginalized and the poor through service with empathy, humility, and resolve; he fights for social justice every day. Allieu constantly faces critical challenges, including hostile communities that see his work as a threat to their land, but he is relentless in fostering positive change.

Profile: David Joseph Allieu is the Executive Director for Civil Society Advocacy Network on Climate Change and the Environment Sierra Leone. In 2004, after receiving intensive training from the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, the United Nations Development Program, and other NGOs, his efforts took full force. Allieu first started his activism in Kenema and transferred to Freetown.

Allieu’s journey as a community civil society activist began with a simple wish: to make positive changes in people’s lives. He has always been sympathetic to the underprivileged and the vulnerable. If a community is prone to climate-change disasters or other issues such as health, pollution, chemicals and pesticides, agriculture, and human rights, and Allieu got to know about it, or if he was informed about specific individuals or communities in disaster-prone or chemically infested areas, he has taken that upon himself to call for action. Allieu has gone to extreme lengths to support those individuals and communities.

As part of his efforts, Allieu was a member of a civil society organisation that partnered with the United States Environment Protection Agency on a nationwide campaign to educate the country on the key findings of the 2014 Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change report. This report ranked Sierra Leone as the world’s third-most vulnerable nation to the effects of climate change.

Allieu does not have the finances to splurge. In order to conduct research and talk with people on rugged terrains, he rides on motorbikes or “okadas” (public bikes). Because of his efforts, individuals and families have been relocated from disaster-prone areas to safer places where they can thrive. Another result of his work is that people have been provided medical assistance. In some cases, due to limited funding, he collaborates with organisations to provide financial support to individuals who need transportation. On a more general level, Allieu gives moral, spiritual, and physical support to people who have lost hope; he encourages them to keep on fighting to improve their lives.

With knowledge and experience in community development programs, project planning, development, budgeting, management, implementation, and reporting, Allieu has reached out to many indigenes in the provinces and Freetown, helping them recover from environmental impacts such as floods, sea-level rise, and fire disasters. After the 2017 mudslides, which claimed over a thousand lives and displaced hundreds, Allieu and his fellow environmental activists advocated to support the survivors. Their actions are not just about assistance but also about promoting a sense of peace, unity, and social justice.

Of course, there are challenges: Some members of the communities where Allieu works assume that he has ulterior motives. They think that he is out to grab their land, and this often poses an obstacle to his carrying out his work. It also hampers access to funding, making Allieu’s annual renewal of registration certificates for his local NGO burdensome. Most painful of all was when Allieu lost relatives and friends during the May 2014 Ebola outbreak. His work was also negatively affected by lack of funding during the COVID-19 health crisis, further threatening his operations and standard of living for his family. It even affected his team’s access to working tools and equipment.

Despite his limited resources, coupled with his disappointment of not being able to help as many people as possible, and occasionally self-doubt, Allieu doesn’t give up.

He participates in talks on climate change and environmental issues and appears as a panelist on talk shows. His activism remains stalwart and effective.