Last Mile Health - Urgent Ebola Response Campaign

Meet Felecia Boe: Young mother, Outstanding Student, and Community Health Worker

As of September 3, 2015, Liberia was again declared Ebola free, after passing 42 days with no cases reported. As a result, Last Mile Health has shifted its Ebola response strategy into a long-term plan to train Community Health Workers (CHWs) to provide essential health services to their own communities. Ebola response services as part of the first training modules CHWs study, in recognition that CHWs are uniquely positioned to help prevent future outbreaks.

Last Mile Health recently completed recruitment and basic training of 120 CHWs in Rivercess County. The account below introduces you to one of the new CHWs Last Mile Health has recently trained, Felecia Boe.

In 2003, with Liberia’s second civil war coming to a close, Felecia Boe’s first pregnancy forced her to drop out of school in the third grade. After moving to live in the city with her uncle, she graduated high school and returned to her home village, Yolo, where she started a family and became a respected member of the 500-person community, which subsequently nominated her to become a Community Health Worker with Last Mile Health.

During her training, she was introduced to Last Mile Health’s vision to see a health worker for everyone, everywhere. She was trained to identify, isolate, and refer Ebola cases, and to establish the foundation for later service provision through community mapping and household registration. She will soon be trained in Integrated Community Case Management (iCCM) to treat malaria, diarrhea, and acute respiratory infections in children under five.

Felicia will fulfill our collective aim to establish access to health services in remote places like Yolo, more than six hours’ walk from the nearest health facility. Felicia is a core representative in the Government of Liberia and Last Mile Health’s plan to expand health care access to all 1.2 million Liberian’s living in remote communities.

The Last Mile Health team is grateful for your support, which enables us to be part of an effective Ebola response, and to realize our vision for every Liberian - especially those living in the most remote places - to have access to quality healthcare.

We believe that the most effective way to have widespread impact is through supporting the Liberian government, which shares the same vision. We’re interested to hear from you about other organizations who have combined implementing programs and supporting the local and national government, as an opportunity for possible learning exchanges.

Links:

• http://www.lastmilehealth.org