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By Ginny Mooy for Politico
When I left Sierra Leone at the end of March, I could not have imagined that the country would face such a high state of health emergency only a few months later. As I was trying to shift production for my business to Sierra Leone, I had planned to come back soon. But then Ebola came and I decided to stay in Holland. Information was scanty at best and I did not want to risk my five-year-old daughter’s life. In June I decided to help Sierra Leone from Holland, by gathering information from people on the ground and spreading it in my own country.
To raise awareness was a great challenge, as most people did not even know that the country Sierra Leone existed. So it was difficult to explain the background against which this epidemic was taking place. The few news articles that were published about the outbreak painted a picture of a primitive culture with backward principles and practices, which created a great distance between the people in the West and people in the outbreak area. Most people shrugged their shoulders: the populations of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia were to blame for the spread of Ebola and only a few people understood that international help was essential to stop the virus from spreading. People reckoned that all efforts to help would be futile; the people of the Ebola-affected countries had to help themselves or die if they were not willing to change.
As an anthropologist having conducted long years of research in Sierra Leone, I understood what went on. I have always stayed among the poor people and I know their way of thinking, their lifestyle and their concerns inside out. But it took me long years and quite many painful lessons to get to that point. The Sierra Leonean society is a very complex one, and so multilayered that it takes outsiders a long time to understand the often times deeper meaning of, for example, even seemingly simple dialogues between people. I offered the WHO my assistance numerous times. I sent them applications – did not ask for any paid position – I sent them assessments of the situation and recommendations for effective measures. Only to find out months later that nobody even bothered to read them.
The mistakes the WHO made were painfully clear from the beginning. Although they may have all the required knowledge about the virus, it was clear that they did not understand the socio-political and cultural circumstances in the affected countries. As the world’s leading health organisation they failed in advising the governments of the affected countries.
The information being provided to the public has been problematic from the start. Failing to take into account the low level of literacy and education, messages were ineffective and too complex. NGO’s involved in the Ebola response spread their own messages. Stunningly, many leaflets and posters had text on them, the drawn images not easily interpretable without understanding the text, although Ebola was affecting the poor and uneducated.
WHO made great efforts to inform the international public about the Ebola outbreak through – mostly – the social media like Twitter, but failed to give the affected populations the essential information they needed and could readily access. Mistrust was growing and every effort by the international bodies to turn the tide contributed to a widening of the gap between the people and the authorities.
I went on social media and sent messages to the world – until my fingers almost bled – trying to explain the social, political and cultural backgrounds in Sierra Leone against which the Ebola epidemic had taken place. People could not ignore the content of my messages. They were picked up by the media in Holland and I was fortunate to get the possibility to go on radio and TV, and was interviewed for newspapers and magazines. I also wrote my own articles almost on a daily basis for months.
Holland was aware of Ebola and understood why the virus was spreading. I gave them a more humane understanding of the situation. I involved politics and piled pressure until cabinet and parliament could no longer ignore the epidemic. It took months of nonstop media pressure to get Ebola on the map here. And when it finally was on the map, the response was still too slow and ineffective.
The context of my messages (and that of other anthropologists working in the region and some dedicated journalists) spread far: the so-called backwardness of the people of the Ebola-affected countries was no longer at the centre of the debate, but rather the humanity of the people and the tragedy Ebola caused and still does cause.
The extreme challenge to humanise the Ebola-affected countries to outsiders lies bare as one of the reasons why countries like Sierra Leone receive so little empathy from the world: the ties the country has with people from the international community willing to fight for their cause are too few. When the UN declared that the Ebola outbreak was as serious as the Tsunami and the Haitian earthquake, we should have seen massive response. But it did not come.
In the case of the Tsunami many tourists advocated for help to the affected countries and they set up their own initiatives. Countries that are relatively isolated from the international community like Sierra Leone have little or no voice to appeal for help. Members of the Diaspora feel, and in actuality, are out of place to demand help from their new home countries. The distance between Sierra Leone and the rest of the world is far too great. And it is up to outsiders (yet insiders) like me to change the negative perception of the international community about Sierra Leone and to fight for her cause when outside help is needed.
As more outside aid is reaching the country (or rather pledges and promises and steadily some more practical and financial aid), we see the situation worsening instead of improving. I joined a small Dutch NGO – a Diaspora initiative kickebola.org – to supply emergency relief items like food and medical supplies to hospitals in the provinces and recently to neighbourhoods in Freetown. To evaluate the aid we give to Sierra Leone and to design a project for Ebola orphans, I travelled to Sierra Leone last week. I expected to see great effort on the ground. But I was greatly disappointed to see that the most elementary needs are still not met. I visited previously and currently affected neighbourhoods in Waterloo, Aberdeen, Malama, Gbendembu and Funkia – all in and around the capital Freetown. I asked the people in quarantined houses about their mindset, what had brought Ebola to their households and the main challenges they faced. I learned that Ebola spreads because people decide to flee to other areas or neighbourhoods when they fear to have come in contact with the virus. The dire circumstances of the quarantine are named as the main reason.
Next: The agony of quarantined households as she explains some of the root causes of the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone
The author is a social anthropologist and sociologist of non-Western cultures. She has lived and worked in Sierra Leone since 2006. From the onset of Ebola, she has been monitoring social response in Sierra Leone and the impact of the epidemic on social life and culture. Together with Sierra Leoneans in and out of the country she runs an NGO for emergency relief and the defence of human rights.
