By Allieu Sahid Tunkara
The Social Mobilisation and Respectful Burials Through faith-based Alliance (SMART) consortium has won the prestigious Bond International Award for its effort in stemming the spread of the Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone.
At the height of the epidemic, controlling the spread of the virus became difficult largely due several reasons, but mainly through unsafe burials. This had to do with lack of training and proper coordination.
In response, SMART was constituted by three international NGOs - World Vision, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the Catholic Relief Agency for Overseas Development (CRAFOD). It is funded by the United Kingdom government.
800 volunteers drawn from across the country were trained to conduct safe and dignified burials of both Ebola and non-Ebola corpses.
The high resistance from people in the early days of the epidemic, which saw the virus spread further, also had to do with concerns over how victims` corpses were handled. Many people were reluctant to hand over the bodies of their loved ones, setting in motion more infections. The SMART consortium`s initiative therefore sought to address that.
At a ceremony held at the Family Kingdom at Aberdeen in Freetown, the World Vision Bo District manager, Grace Kargo, said owing to the practice of safe and dignified burial, Maseray Kamara, an Ebola Survivor, now an active member of the Ebola burial team, was invited to the United Kingdom to collect an award as she emerged the overall winner among the eight hundred members.
Maseray Kamara, who was accompanied by two of her colleagues from Portloko and Kambia to the awards celebration programme, contracted the Ebola virus while she was in Bandajuma, Pujehun District.
But she could not travel to the UK owing to circumstances beyond her control, Kargbo later revealed.
She referred to the burial team as a group of selfless people that had risked their safety to save their country.
“This recognition is a tremendous encouragement after all the suffering we have seen in Sierra Leone and across West Africa because of Ebola. Our courageous, selfless burial team members risk their health and safety daily while been reviled and stigmatised by the very communities they serve,” she said.
During the occasion, a video clip, compiled by an Aljazeera journalist, Nina Devries, showing how safe and dignified burials are conducted in the country, was shown to the audience. The clip was titled: ‘In Ebola country, a dignified death requires a feminine touch.’
Speaking at the occasion, Michael Ghebrab, CRS Country Representative in Sierra Leone, said when the Ebola virus broke out in the country in May last year his organisation never knew how to respond to the outbreak. He said there were even discrepancies in figures released by the then Emergency Operation Centre, the Ministry of Health and Sanitation and the United States Centres for Disease Control.
This situation forced CRS to pull out his staff, Ghebrab said. He however stated that the problem was solved when the three institutions came under one roof.
Mr Ghebrab categorised the period of the Ebola outbreak into three phases. ‘May to August was the learning phase; August to October was the alarm phase; and October to now is the ‘acceleration’ phase.’
The head of CRS further stated that his organisation and partners learned a lot during the first phase of the Ebola outbreak and that this informed their intervention in the Ebola fight through social mobilisation.
“When the disease spread to Kenema, we started our mobilisation,” he said.
As the disease continued to spread, Mr Gehbrab went on, his organisation started searching for solutions and contacted the Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCSL) as the highest religious body in the country to devise a way of embarking on safe and dignified burials. He said the IRCSL at that time was deeply concerned about the manner in which the dead were being buried so they had cause to come in.
Kayode Akintola, CAFOD country representative for both Liberia and Sierra Leone, said the three organisations which made up SMART came together to restore hope.
He said not even the declaration of a state of public emergency, owing to the overwhelming nature of the disease, left them paralysed.
Since November 2014, SMART had trained people that would spread the Ebola messages so that they could reduce new infections, he said.
“Ebola hit hard in the poor and vulnerable communities.”
The National Director of Word Vision Sierra Leone, Mr Leslie Scott, said it would be difficult for safe burial to succeed in Sierra Leone because of culture and tradition. He said when the Ebola virus struck, the people were engaged in secret burials and corpses were lying on the streets especially in Calaba Town in the east of Freetown.
In this situation, Scott said, they considered burial as a way of intervening. “We achieved 75% within 24 hours and 95% within few months,” he said. He assured members of the burial team that SMART would not abandon them in the post Ebola period. He said his organisation was currently working on how to engage these workers after the Ebola because of their relentless and patriotic service.
The Deputy Head of the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) office in Sierra Leone, Chris Gabelle, referred to the three representatives from the provinces as an ‘amazing example’ of the resilience of Sierra Leoneans.
“They have overcome stigma and tradition for the safety of their country,” he said.
“This unflinching band of Sierra Leoneans,” he added, “has played a role in turning the tide against the Ebola outbreak in the country.”
Gabelle said the experience of the burial teams would not be forgotten but would be utilised in the post Ebola recovery.
“The end of Ebola is within sight,” he assured. He then urged members of the burial teams to continue to practise the safe and dignified burials in their communities.
Presentation of a pink plaque to the award winner, Maseray Kamara, by the World Vision Bo Manager climaxed the occasion.
© Politico 09/06/15
