Psycho Social support for Ebola victims

Incessant rain fall on Sunday night and Monday August 14, left the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown in a state of emergency. Torrents of water rushed through the city in the early hours on Monday sweeping up entire homes and creating mudslides leaving massive destruction in its wake. Over 300 people have lost their lives and more than 600 are still missing after the heavy rains deluged the city's insufficient drainage system. IsraAID team in Sierra Leone responded quickly and the team on the ground is working tirelessly with the government and our local partners to provide immediate relief and psychosocial support.

It is the height of the rainy season and heavy floods are not uncommon. IsraAID Sierra Leone’s Country Director Andra Weissberger told i24News:

“Late on Sunday night, it started raining really hard and the sanitation system is not equipped to handle all the water so it creates flooding. There’s a dam which was incapable of handling the water and it created a flood.”

 “Since yesterday morning there has been at least 75 to 100 people at any given time searching for bodies. As far as I understand, they have not found anyone alive. People are overwhelmed by the enormity of the disaster. Bodies were carried through the streets in the rushing water. Our staff was helping retrieve them so that the Red Cross could come and collect them. Many of the bodies recovered were severed, leaving it difficult to give an accurate picture of the death toll.” (see link below for full article)

Beyond the initial tragedy and destruction, long-term trauma can have a debilitating effect for a population already reeling from the civil war and the recent Ebola outbreak. In addition to the immediate response IsraAID will also aim to build the resilience of the local community through capacity-building.

Update from the Radio Talk-shows

The anticipated audience for the radio talk-show weekly is 4000 people. The radio talk-shows are hosted at “Radio Kollenten” which have a wider coverage that covers the entire Kambia district. This event serves as a community sensitization on the issues of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) and referral pathways, to get an inclination of how our intervention has been perceived by the community people; to raise awareness on the issues of gender based violence and track whether the past phases of the project are generating impact.

The people were very enthusiastic about the program; A range of 90-92% of the callers expressed their appreciation and commend IsraAID for their intervention. The radio talk-shows are empowering and enabling women and girls to know their rights and be knowledgeable about SGBV and their referral pathways. Victims of SGBV explained their situations and the inhumane treatment they are going through as one caller stated: “Men have been maltreating us on the notion that we are their properties, today, I have realised that I do have my rights and I now know how and where to channel my concerns’’ also a caller send a text message which stated “For decades we the women are asked to take the back row, used as remote controllers, live in stoic situations, this program will be a starting point where women and girls will realize and be aware of their rights and the law that protect them”.

School visits

A total of fourteen schools were visited in the 7 chiefdoms in Kambia District. There were huge turnout of pupils and teachers, a total of 10,869 attendees; 10,509 pupils, 360 teachers. The school authorities and pupils in all 7 chiefdoms visited were passionate and excited about the visitation. In both engagement, the pupils and teachers gave positive comments that they really appreciate and happy about the project. As the principal of Great Scarcies Secondary School,  stated “this visitation is not just awareness raising of SGBV and referral pathways but a motivation talk for my pupils and the teachers; we have also learned and developed inspirations to unite against SGBV abuse in our school”.  

One pupil at Magbema Islamic Secondary School stated that “this presentation has made me to understand the issues impacting our success as girls, and I have developed the desire to help fight against it by speaking out”.

Also, a teacher at Kollenten Secondary School stated that “What you are doing is very important, now I understand that some of these issues we used to engage in are negatively impacting our pupils’ academic success (Psychological Violence); we really appreciate your coming to us”.

Thank you for supporting IsraAID's programs in Sierra Leone - please donate now to help our response team continue the work of cleaning up after the mudslide and strenghten the community through the crisis. 

Link to the article in i24NEWs here.