In 1998, under the sponsorship of UNDP, a huge, multi-million dollar, three-year educational campaign called the "National Awareness Raising Program," was launched.208 The program, which since its inception has monopolized most of the NCDHR staff and time, is aimed at promoting peace, reconciliation and respect for human rights through the creative use of public meetings, mass media campaigns, street theater, art and music. Initiated after the failure of the l997 Abidjan peace accord and before the signing of the l999 Lomé Peace accord, the National Awareness Raising Program was also aimed at generating support for the government's agenda for seeking an end to the war.

Before peace talks began in Lomé, Togo in May l999, the NCDHR organized a huge consultative conference which brought together professional, student, civic and human rights groups as well as elders and religious leaders to discuss issues related to the peace talks, and to come up with suggestions to the government which would reflect the views of civil society. Following the July 7, l999 signing of the Lomé Peace Accord, the NCDHR have also been involved in a campaign to educate the population about the contents of the accord. Their lack of public condemnation of the controversial blanket amnesty which the accord afforded all warring factions, has been noted with grave concern by human rights activists.

The NCDHR runs a twice-weekly free legal aid clinic in Freetown which addresses mostly non-war related violations of economic and social rights such as child maintenance disputes, unlawful dismissals, tenancy disputes, non-payment of benefits, domestic disputes and industrial relations. The legal aid clinic, manned by one part time lawyer supported by UNDP, and a few other lawyers working on a pro-bono basis, registers some forty to fifty new cases per week. As the NCDHR lacks the power to subpoena records or institute proceedings on behalf of their clients, most of these cases are either settled through mediation or taken to court privately. The legal clinic has on numerous occasions taken on controversial cases involving the police and official institutions, and has both privately and publicly shown its willingness to confront government. The judicial system in Sierra Leone has historically been plagued by inefficiency and corruption, and former NCDHR head Dr. Kadi Sesay explained the importance of a legal aid clinic to encourage the rule of law and break the cycle of impunity:

We see the legal aid clinic as one of the keys for addressing human rights violations. For ordinary citizens even going to magistrate court is difficult; they can't afford the legal fees and even when they can afford it, legislation in this country is so slow people just give up. We have taken on controversial cases where the police have tried to intimidate witnesses, or where they've said they've lost client files, but we've taken them on. You can not just educate people about their political, civic and human rights; you must also give them a mechanism for them to use when those rights are broken.209

The activities of the NCDHR are greatly hampered by the difficult, and even dangerous, conditions that they are working under. Members of the commission point not only to the lack of funds, but also disruption from the war as being responsible for limiting their work and frustrating the completion of several projects. The work of the NCDHR was interrupted after only four months by the May 27, l997 coup which drove the government into exile in Guinea. After returning in March l998, they began work on several projects only to be disrupted again in January 1999 by a rebel offensive against Freetown. At least five cars donated by UNDP for the work of the commission were destroyed and their offices were damaged. At least two members of the NCDHR or its committees were killed as a result of the offensive, and others fled into exile and have yet to return. Long curfews, limited working hours, and the rebel occupation of just under half of the country made travel outside of the capital Freetown difficult. Joe Pemagbi, NCDHR chair and formerly commissioner for the southern region, describes some of the problems encountered by both the lack of funds and the disruption the NCDHR has faced.

It seems that each time we begin something, the project is interrupted. Last year we received specialized training from UNAMSIL on human rights monitoring. But just a month later, our work and lives were disrupted by the January [rebel] offensive so we didn't even have time to put those skills into practice. We don't have funds or logistics to operative properly; we can't even travel for meetings. We want to start reporting, monitoring in each region of the country. But to do that we need to travel and we don't even have a travel fund to do it. Some of the cars that were donated to us were either destroyed or confiscated during the offensive We want to produce a human rights newsletter, but there's no money. Several of the manuscripts for human rights education, like `Women and the Law' and an abridged form of the constitution are ready to print but there are no funds to print them. We can't really blame the government; the war has devastated the economy and left them with no money to contribute. 210