Tagged: Sierra Leone

A mother and child looking at the white packages they are holding

Ebola ‘don don’: returning to normal in rural Sierra Leone

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When travelling around Kabala city in Koinadugu district of Sierra Leone, there are times it feels like a corner of paradise on earth. The little guest house is surrounded by verdant mountains, capped by cotton-wool clouds above wooded slopes. There’s a slight nip in the air, which you don’t get back in the capital. Shortly after… Read more →←
A woman in a striped shirt and headscarf holds a baby in her lap.

Beating malnutrition and running from chameleons in Sierra Leone

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When baby Fatima returned to her mother’s village at two months old from Freetown, the capital city “everyone was afraid,” her grandmother Sia Gbandawa told me. Fatima was born in Freetown but sadly her mother died a month after giving birth. Sent back to her paternal village of Bendu Sandor village in Kono district, about six… Read more →←
Five people gaze at a mudslide.

In Sierra Leone mudslides rip a community apart

Children in emergencies

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If Ebola was an emergency based around a tiny virus that often killed before it was discovered, the deep brown gash on a Freetown hillside is a sign of a disaster of a very different nature. Like Rio de Janiero on the other side of the Atlantic, Sierra Leone’s capital is built on spectacular coastal hills, and is overshadowed by a… Read more →←
A group of girls in their school uniforms, photographed from above.

Beating Ebola with clean water and soap

Children in emergencies

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What would you do without water? Some of us are lucky enough not to have to ask that question, but many around the world are not. Especially in emergencies, UNICEF’s water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) teams work to make sure that water is available, along with hygiene measures and supplies to protect people from disease. In… Read more →←
A father beside his daughter.

In Sierra Leone, good parenting is child’s play

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As we bumped along a heavily-rutted mud road, dodged fallen bamboo branches from the surrounding forest, and swerved around massive puddles, we spotted a barrier across the road and a checkpoint manned only by children. Two decades ago, such an opening gambit in an article about Sierra Leone would have undoubtedly gone on to describe an… Read more →←
A man in a crowd dances on a table./

Last time out of Ebola quarantine in Sierra Leone?

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I have a vivid memory of the first time I heard predictions of a “bumpy road” to zero Ebola cases. It was December 2014 and I was up-country in the town of Kenema (south-east Sierra Leone) close to the place where Ebola was first recorded in the country. We were listening to the radio in a dusty hotel courtyard as we prepared for a… Read more →←
A young girl washes her hands

Developing communities in Sierra Leone

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Two things immediately strike you when you arrive in the village of Thigbonor in Lokomasama chiefdom: the place is extremely tidy, and the high street is almost deserted. After a four hour drive from Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, we park under a large banana plant, and follow people’s indications to the outskirts of the village.… Read more →←
A group of young mem listen as someone speaks into a microphone

The day after the end of the outbreak

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With the World Health Organization declaration on Saturday that the 18-month Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone was officially over, it was a poignant weekend. On Sunday morning, when the champagne glasses hadn’t yet been cleaned, the crowds were still dispersing from the overnight beach parties, and the church congregations were dancing… Read more →←
The flood area including the devastated primary school

Help for Sierra Leone’s flood victims

Children in emergencies

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The September floods in Freetown, Sierra Leone were devastating and the areas worst affected were coastal slums where residents are already extremely poor and vulnerable. Adama Kamara wasn’t at home when the downpour started, but she knew her baby was. When the water flooded her Freetown home she lost almost everything – but not her… Read more →←

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