By Kemo Cham
Last Friday about 15 people gathered at the small conference hall of the All Works of Life (AWOL) on Pa Demba Road in Freetown; the occasion was to say a “little” ‘Thank You’ to a young British volunteer social worker heading back home. Tom Stephenson arrived in Freetown early February as part of a one-man mission to help in the fight against the Ebola epidemic.
Tom`s Sierra Leone adventure makes for an interesting story, unique in many respects. He came in at a time when every non-Sierra Leonean would rather stay away from a country sinking under the weight of a raging, deadly epidemic, except of course if they were part of one of those international NGOs making most of the headlines and attracting most of the millions in aid money in the name of fighting the disease. Besides the anxiety he must have put his family back home in in the UK, the young man`s bravery is also demonstrated by the fact that he boarded a plane headed for an Ebola infested country on the invitation of someone he virtually knew nothing about, except that they both share one thing on common – the desire to help disadvantaged and vulnerable people.
Tom was in Ghana on a social work mission with Project Abroad, a UK headquartered charity. When his time there ended, having been following developments in Sierra Leone, he thought of coming over “to help.” He came across Social Workers Sierra Leone. His plan, he said, was to spend the rest of his time in Africa helping out in some communities in need of his expertise.
Social Workers Sierra Leone, a humble organization run by a group of young Sierra Leoneans with an equal passion for the profession, had been involved in social mobilization efforts of the epidemic, even if with quite a low key profile, even before the disease was actually detected in Sierra Leone. The organization is not your average organization by virtue of been seriously under resourced. But, says Hassan Koroma, Founder and National Coordinator, “what matters to us is the passion we have for our work.”
Pains of Slavery
And with passion indeed they have pursued their work, especially so during the course of this epidemic. The group has engaged in a number of sensitization programmes, mostly in the rural part of the Western Region, one of the epicenters of the epidemic.
Hassan has been hosting Tom throughout the last seven weeks in his own bedroom in central Freetown. The two met online when Tom had researched Sierra Leone and found out about the work the organization was doing.
Tom told Politico that he was surprised to find out about the under resourced nature of the organization. But he was never discouraged in spite of everything, he said. As a further demonstration of his commitment, the British social worker who graduated at the London Metropolitan University with a Masters Degree in Social Work used his own money to fund programmes held in deprived communities either at great risk of the virus or suffering from its effects.
It was this bravery that was mostly hailed at the AWOL conference hall. Among the small gathering were journalists, other social workers and politicians.
“The hundreds of millions of help that came for Ebola did not cancel the feeling of pains of slavery like” Tom`s gesture does, remarked Karamo Kabba, Deputy Minister of Public and Political Affairs. He was referring to the millions of Pounds spent by the UK government and other aid agencies in the fight against the epidemic.
The UK government alone spent about 300m Pounds building treatment and holding centers across the country, when it eventually intervened as a former colonial master of Sierra Leone. These treatment centers helped reduced a major pressure caused by serious lack of beds at the height of the epidemic.
But despite this gesture of the British government, the presence of its officials in the country has been shrouded in controversy, with allegations that the expatriates spent much of their time in their hotel rooms and in swimming pools, while Ebola stricken people died for lack of beds.
Tom`s act is quite a contrast to not just the many British who formed part of that team but all the many others who came under several other aid groups, noted Deputy Minister Kabba, who also praised the media for its role in the fight against the epidemic.
“He is truly a man of great courage,” he said.
Time and Money
Besides its reportage on the epidemic, the media, through the umbrella Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), have been at the forefront of the fight with representatives at even the national level of the anti-Ebola effort. SLAJ lately sealed its activities against the epidemic by launching its Yellow Ribbon campaign which has since been endorsed by even the government and other international partners.
But the reportage, especially by the electronic media, has been particularly instrumental given how much the local population depended on it for crucial information, even if there had been some crunching moments sparked by some reportage considered negative by politicians and inefficient Ebola responders.
“[Even] if there were any negative press, they were good for reawakening us,” admitted the deputy minister.
The man of the day, Tom, was “speechless” over the honor accorded him. He said he didn’t believe it was a coincidence that he met Hassan, the SWSL coordinator, whose display of passion and dedication inspired him to help out. “I had the time. I had the money,” he said.
In all, the team was able to hold three programmes on its own, all between Levuma and Tombo, communities behind Waterloo. They also held collaborative programmes with other local and international NGOs, as well as the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children Affairs.
Tom said his intension was to do more than that, if not for the resource scarcity he found SWSL in.
When asked what he doesn`t like the most during his stay in the country, he was blunt.
“The fact that things hardly get done here quickly,” he says.
I couldn’t agree more. We would certainly not have gotten to this point, with so many people dying of a preventable disease, if the right thing had been done at the right time.
© Politico 14/04/15
