By Mustapha Kamara Jnr
Fambul Tok Executive Director, John Caulker, sensitizing community residents
As Sierra Leone strives towards eradicating the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) which has negatively impacted on the country’s socio-economic development, Fambul Tok, an International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) in the country, has kicked off post-Ebola sensitization at Mapaki Section, Bombali District.
Mapaki section is one of the 10 villages in Pakimasabong, a small Chiefdom in the North of Sierra Leone. It is one of the many communities greatly affected by the Ebola outbreak which has so far claimed over 3,000 lives since it broke out one year ago in May.
Fambul Tok’s Executive Director, John Caulker, said the sensitization was part of their healing and reconciliation process, a project under the organization’s community preparedness program for post Ebola engagements. He referred to the sensitization as part of their support to the government on its post Ebola recovery activities.
“We want to engage residents of various communities so that they can be aware of pitfalls made during the post war recovery process and for them to be prepared to avoid such pitfalls,” Caulker said.
According to the INGO boss, many post war recovery projects that were funded and implemented by the government and donors to aid war victims had failed because the beneficiaries and communities were not consulted to identify and define their problems before aid was provided to them.
To prevent similar situations in post Ebola Sierra Leone, Caulker recommended that the government and donors should consult with Ebola survivors and their communities to know what their needs were before aid could be provided. That, he said, would ensure that intended projects were successful and sustainable.
He also advised government and its partners to endeavor to provide collective aid for Ebola survivors through respective communities, rather than providing individual aids.
“If the communities are not in the stronger position to demand then the supply would be weak,” Caulker noted.
He explained that the main aim of the community preparedness programme was to prevent the resurgence of the virus after it would have been eradicated from the country and to make communities resilient.
To achieve that, the Fambul Tok boss said they were going to prepare the minds of people, especially residents of communities which have been seriously affected by the epidemic.
Meanwhile, he said, the INGO had plans underway to host national dialogue programmes as a way of bringing communities and policy makers together to deliberate on post Ebola strategies.
“We are working towards a national dialogue whereby we will have communities at the centre to present their post Ebola plans to policy makers and hear their responses,” Caulker said.
He assured of his organization’s continuous support to the government towards ending Ebola in Sierra Leone, adding that community preparedness programmes for post Ebola engagements in all their operational areas across the country would continue.
Hannah Davies, a community health worker at Mapaki, said the Chiefdom recorded many confirmed Ebola cases, especially in the Rosanda Section, a village in Bombali Chiefdom.
She described the sensitization project as “timely” because there was, up to now, a lot of misconception about the disease. She said health workers were being marginalized and called names because they were helping to provide treatment for Ebola affected persons in the chiefdom.
Davies expressed optimism that the sensitization by Fambul Tok would bring peace among aggrieved community residents and also help to broaden their knowledge and understanding on how to prevent the further spread of the disease. She called on the government and donors to boost agriculture and provide loans to Ebola survivors, farmers and other people that were indirectly affected within the community.
© Politico 19/05/14
