sierra leone

Infographic

Following the Ebola epidemic, Sierra Leone faces challenges to rebuilding its community health system. This infographic helps explain the challenges of delivering community maternal and child health services in a post-Ebola context.

Video

Safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene are critical for people’s health and well-being, especially to reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Advancing Partners & Communities is excited to launch part one of a two-part compelling, original video series showcasing the work in Sierra Leone to improve primary health care services at health posts and community levels. This first video focuses on the efforts needed to rebuild these services as part of the post-Ebola transition in the country. Handwashing with soap is a critical way to protect communities from the future spread of the Ebola virus and other diseases.

Summary

In Sierra Leone, APC works through a grant from USAID’s “Ebola Response and Preparedness” funds to support the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS) implement its 2015–2020 Health Sector Recovery Plan. The project’s goal is to strengthen community-based non-Ebola health services, with emphasis on reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH).

Fatmata, an MCH-aide assumed responsibility for a health post affected by Ebola in Sierra Leone, leaving behind her own community to help one with a greater need.

Publication

The Ebola Transmission Prevention and Survivor Services Program (ETP & SS) launched in July 2016 and is operating under the umbrella of priorities set by USAID’s Global Health Ebola Team. The program works with ministries of health and nongovernmental organizations in regions of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea that are most affected by the Ebola outbreak.

Strategy

Advancing Partners & Communities has drafted a community engagement strategy for adoption and use by all implementing partners in the project’s five districts. In line with the project’s goal of strengthening health services, the strategy focuses on district- and facility-level interventions and emphasizes the role of community health workers (CHWs). The strategy complements other community-based interventions.

In November 2018, the USAID-funded Advancing Partners & Communities project began to revitalize the Facility Management Committee and provide refresher programs on the FMC’s responsibilities and commitments to their Peripheral Health Unit.

In November 2018, the Advancing Partners & Communities project came to Mayossoh MCHP to meet with the FMC. They provided refresher training to the FMC on their role in supporting and maintaining the facility.

Policy

Advancing Partners & Communities has provided training, technical assistance, and operational support for revising and implementing the MOHS’ CHW Policy. The policy is now a cornerstone of the Presidential Recovery Plan.

March 18, 2016
Announcement

On March 9, 2016, Advancing Partners & Communities in Sierra Leone officially launched the Strengthening Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health (RMNCH) Services as part of the Post-Ebola Health Sector Recovery in Western Area project at the Sierra Leone Bank Complex. The project is a collaborative effort between the Government of Sierra Leone and its development partners- the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MOHS), JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. (JSI), Action Contre la Faim, and Save the Children- to improve access to and availability of high-quality health services in the country. The project is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

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