By Mustapha Kamara Jnr
Don Bosco Fambul, a local Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Sierra Leone, has reconciled 45 Ebola orphans with other members of their families.
The children, who lost their parents to the viral epidemic which broke out in the country almost a year ago, were released from the NGO’s Interim Care Center (ICC) over the weekend.
Director of Don Bosco Fambul in Freetown, Brother Loather Wanger, said the children were the second set of orphans to be reconciled with family members. Wanger revealed that the Christian-based organization decided to establish and operate the ICC in September last year in response to the need for shelter for Ebola affected children. This way these children are also provided with treatment, all geared towards complementing the effort of government in the fight against the disease.
Brother Loather then explained that the main aim of the center then was to provide medical and psycho-social care for the children that had suffered the effect of the outbreak, especially those orphaned by the disease.
The Don Bosco director said they had seen it as an appropriate measure to build the care centre at Saint Augustin Agricultural Secondary School, in Tintafor, Lungi, so as to receive referral cases of children who were seriously affected by the disease in the western area rural and urban, northern and other parts of the country.
“We took the children in as they were being referred to us by the Ministry of Social Welfare and other partner organizations working in child issues across the country,” Wanger said.
To ensure that they keep track of and monitor the orphans with their new families, the Don Bosco boss said that had already initiated a new approach through which they would continue to support the kids for at least six months.
Don Bosco has for the last 23 years been working to take children off the streets and provide financial support to them and also help reunite street children with their families across the country.
At the treatment centre, the children were given good medical and psycho-social treatment, some of them testified. They also said they were given training in various skills to empower them for when they will have eventually gone back to their families.
To calm the minds of children that had suffered the disease and those who had lost their parents to the virus, Wanger explained that Don Bosco had employed a social worker and a trauma therapist to provide them with trauma healing.
Magrette Camison, one of the beneficiary kids, who was taken from the Hasting treatment center where she was admitted after contracting the virus and losing both parents last year, expressed appreciation to the Christian aid organization, saying they had given her new hope.
“When I came to the care centre my condition was not good. There was pain all over my body, but I was able to recover after receiving treatment from the care givers at the centre,” Camison explained.
At the moment, she added, her life was better. She said she`d learnt a lot of new skills in dancing, playing musical instruments and also ways of controlling one’s temper.
© Politico 10/04/15
