While we work toward getting funds and logistics in place to send vegetable seeds, our main partner in Liberia, Church Aid, Inc. (New Water in the Desert) continues its highly community-based work to battle the disease itself. Reverend Kortu Brown reports:
"Church Aid Incorporated . . . has for the past three months gotten involved in the physical fight against Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) through a Special Ebola Response Team, SERT. This response initiative started up by reaching out to communities to help pregnant women, lactating mothers, old folks and vulnerable people with food and non-food items. It also continued by making donation of Medications and Personal Protective Equipments –PPEs, etc, to Hospitals. The response went one step further and started working with communities’ stakeholders The next stage of the response initiative is training. The response has lead to the organization of workshops to train communities’ members; beginning with 9 communities’ based Youth Organizations with about 70 participants on the 4 of September, 2014.
The latest of the training response initiative was held on October 10, 2014 with 25 churches leaders and members in the Banjor Community. The "training of trainers" workshop was held under the theme: Ebola Awareness & Prevention Volunteerism and the Road to an Ebola Free Liberia. The training was conducted by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, our partners. A total of 60 persons were trained to become trainers in their various segment of the Banjor community on the awareness and prevention of Ebola. The 3 hours presentation was interactive as the facilitators was able to speak and correct the doubts in the mind of participants of how the virus is spread and how it can be prevented and that coming down with Ebola is not a death sentence, but early seeking of treatment gives one the chance to survive. However, what kills most is denial!"
Because of the shortage of health care workers, much of the focus of train the trainer workshops is on basic healthcare facts like how to mix disinfectants: "The workshop was quite a successful one as participants were able to ask many questions most especially for the measurement of the disinfectants. They were taught that the disinfectants measurement is of two types, highly concentrated, 0.5 solution for disinfecting areas and other things that may belong to asick person and the 0.05 solution for hand washing. They were now fully equipped to take these messages to their community with most persisting emphasis against denial."
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