By Hafeeza Rashed | Project Leader
Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa supports GSA Rock Hill Community Women
Profile on Vaibah & GSA Rock Hill Community Women
Vaibah is a fierce protector of her close-knit Rock Hill community. For over a decade, Vaibah has worked with her neighbors to safeguard the neighborhood they love. An impoverished district of over 25,000 residents, Rock Hill is located in Monrovia. Many of its inhabitants and their children still earn a living crushing rocks by hand to sell for construction projects. Access to clean water remains a challenge for many of its residents. Vaibah, and women like her, formed the GSA Rock Hill Community Women group to address local issues. GSA Rock Hill Community Women (“Rock Hill Women”) have worked vigilantly to expand access to clean water, and raise school enrollment for neighborhood children.
As news of Ebola worsened, Vaibah and her associates grew increasingly worried that the outbreak would spread to Rock Hill. With limited access to clean water and few health professionals, one infected neighbor could prove disastrous for Rock Hill. “If Ebola comes to this community,” explains Vaibah “what is there to stop it? The people here are too poor.” Rock Hill Women had a plan to prevent transmission, but no funds to implement it.
With a grant from Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa (GPFA), Rock Hill Women executed their two-prong plan: Outreach to youth to build awareness and health education tutorials. Vaibah with her team distributed buckets, chlorine and soap to various groups and centers where youths and adults gather on the daily including clothing shops, prayer bands, video clubs, and drug stores. Using support from GPFA, Rock Hill Women re-granted a modest amount to Young Women of Substance, a young women’s youth group aged 22 to 30 years old, to support anti-transmission efforts. “No one has come to help Rock Hill. No one has given us money to stop the virus from coming [here]. It is as if we are forgotten! Gbowee Peace Foundation was the only one who said, ‘Here. What can we do to help?’”
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