Ebola Projects Funded by World Renew in Liberia

We love being involved with World Renew!  Functioning as the development, disaster response, and justice arm of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, the aspects of World Renew’s work are three-fold: community development, disaster response and rehabilitation, and advocacy. Although it is not normally involved in providing direct medical assistance, they felt compelled to respond to the terrible Ebola crisis in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. World Renew donors and partners were generous!

Since arriving here, we have reviewed and gained many insights into the various World Renew supported projects in Liberia.

The first project in September 2014 had two purposes: To distribute medications donated by World Renew and to spread Ebola prevention messaging by handing out flyers and providing instruction on the use of personal protective equipment. While this sounds straightforward, there were great challenges for the team of six staff members from the Christian Health Association of Liberia (CHAL) as they travelled across this rugged country. In many rural communities, they were the first to spread these life-saving Ebola prevention methods. The medications they provided, including antibacterial, antiviral and fever reduction drugs were essential to the clinics since their supplies had been completely depleted. The complete story of the CHAL heroes will be told in a later blog post.

The next project that World Renew funded (from November to January) was designed to prevent the further spread of Ebola by providing building materials for five triage units at remote health clinics. During this stage, World Renew and its partners also trained staff on how to use the triage units to the best advantage and equipped the staff with personal protective gear.

The following is a testimonial about the advantage of a triage unit from a staff person’s perspective.

“My name is Mary K. Gargar Swee.  I am a Registered Nurse and the Officer in Charge of the George Dean Memorial Clinic, Camphor Mission. I have worked at this clinic for five and a half years. I am so thankful that our clinic has a triage unit. Before, there were numerous entries to the clinic and people came and went as they pleased. People knew they should wash their hands but often just didn’t. Now there is only one way in for treatment. A security person makes sure that before entering, patients wash their hands with chlorine water from a bucket with a tap and have their temperature checked. Next, they must answer some routine questions in the triage building to rule out the possibility that they have the Ebola Virus. If there is any suspicion or any symptoms of Ebola, they are isolated in the curtained half of the new triage unit. This triage unit has given the patients reassurance that they are protected from contagion. As the nurse caring for these patients, I feel reassured and so much safer to have, not only the triage system, but also the personal protective equipment that has been given to us. I am so thankful to World Renew!”

This brings us to World Renew’s third project with CHAL. Its mandate is to distribute generous amounts of medications and to provide more personal protective equipment to each of the 45 health facilities that are CHAL members located throughout the country. This project also reinforces messages about Ebola prevention, informs the communities that there is medicine available (many have walked as far as five miles only to find there is no medication on hand at some clinics), encourages them to once again utilize the clinics when they or their families are ill and attempts to alleviate their mistrust of all medical personnel.

ZOA is a Netherlands-based INGO that supports people who suffer because of armed conflict or natural disasters, by helping them to rebuild their livelihoods. World Renew has been a partner to ZOA in Liberia for several years in its food security programs. Through this project World Renew will continue to support ZOA in its food security work, with the added elements of food assistance, social mobilization and hygiene promotion. They are targeting 2,000 households with food security recovery assistance by providing cassava cuttings, 390 households with food assistance and 7,000 households with hygiene promotion and education as well as hygiene items. We visited the ZOA office and were able to learn more about the project and were able to speak with some of their very positive and enthusiastic staff. It is good to see that there will be ongoing support for Liberians as they struggle for economic recovery post Ebola, through this and similar projects.

Our next blog will be about some Ebola survivors we have met.