Ebola Survivors Health Fair was an all day event on Saturday, 13 June at the Monrovia City Hall. Event was organized, funded and implemented in collaboration between Liberia Ebola Survivors Association, Clinical Research Management, Waves For Water and Youth Action International.
On the day of the event, 700 survivors received a preassembled bucket-filter and instructional training on proper use & maintenance of their new clean-water system. Day included meals for everyone and several guest speakers in the City Hall auditorium - Speakers included heroic doctors who helped the people of Liberia navigate and survive, the devastating, horrific Ebola epidemic.
The entire day was honoring and supporting all the survivors who endured immeasurable suffering and loss throughout the epidemic, and have since been cruelly outcast - the untouchables.
Our initiative is an ongoing effort to help survivors get back on their feet, and reclaim their rightful place in Liberian society. Each attendee of the health fair returned to their home neighborhoods with the new ability to provide safe drinking water for immediate families, and to many others nearby.
Not only were these victims left for dead, they are now returning from this tragedy with a means to help prevent more sickness and death from the decades-long epidemic of water-borne disease. (Cholera, Giardia, Typhoid, E-Coli, Salmonella, worms, parasites - all the bacteria that cause diarrhea, dehydration and death - in millions of children worldwide).
Liberia's neighbor to the north, Sierra Leone, is where we are going next - to replicate our efforts in a place even more dire than Liberia - where Ebola is still active. Our key partner for this next effort is Dr. Kimmie Weeks, Chairman of the Board of Liberia Water & Sanitation and founder & director of Youth Action International (can google Kimmie Weeks to see his life story).
Kimmie has already gone to Sierra Leone, distributed W4W clean-water systems in Ebola quarantine areas, and reported back to us the urgent need for more. Clinical RM has already pledged 200, and, before we return in August, we hope to get other organizations (who did amazing humanitarian work in West Africa throughout the Ebola epidemic) to match CRM - perhaps helping us get 400, 600 or more clean-water systems to the still 'hot' zone in Sierra Leone.
NOTE: Waves For Water has been doing clean-water projects with Dr. Weeks at schools and villages throughout Liberia for the past four years. When Ebola hit, we were ready to jump in with resources, talent and expertise, to get safe drinking water, hand-washing stations and non-contact thermometers to schools in Monrovia - to students and staff in the harshest neighborhoods who otherwise had received no assistance from international relief efforts.
Kimmie Weeks & Jack Rose YAI + W4W working together for years helping more people get more water… Liberia population = 4 million – we won't stop until everyone has access to safe drinking water . . .
Bringing safe water to the Kendeja school and village
Vicki Tifft, founder of Clinical RM, with son, Morgan and project facilitator, John Strader – helping 700 people train and receive clean-water systems at the Ebola Survivor Health Fair - Monrovia City Hall on Saturday, June 13, 2015.
One of many schools that now have safe water, hand washing stations and non-contact thermometers.
Joe, Mady, Jack, Vicki – W4W + CRM = the 'Get it Done' gang . . . bringing a total of 1,100 clean-water systems to Liberia.
Amara, Jack, Mady & Peter . . .
One of many wells across West Africa that now enjoy safe drinking water.
who we work for . . . imagine, every person in Liberia gaining access to safe drinking water.
One of many schools that now have safe water, hand washing stations and non-contact thermometers.
One of many wells across West Africa that now enjoy safe drinking water.
Korlia, President of Liberia Ebola Survivors Association with: Emmanuel, John, Peter & Ethan.
Ebola survivors giving back, not giving up . . . our kind of people.
Dr. John Fankhauser and Dr. Jerry Brown of ELWA hospital in Liberia, learning how to turn water that takes away life into water that gives life . . .
Dr. Mady Slater – w4w field doc – on front lines in the war against Ebola and water-borne disease.
Kimmie and Jack - we never stop – thanks to the steady support of CRM and many organizations and individuals who agree with us: In West Africa, the ongoing issue of providing safe drinking water is a solvable problem.
Waves For Water - http://www.wavesforwater.org/project/ebolasurvivor...
Clinical Research Management - http://www.clinicalrm.com
Youth Action International - http://www.youthactioninternational.org/yai
AIRLINK - http://www.airlink-info.org/about http://www.airlink-info.org/severe-earthquake-resp...