Schools in Sierra Leone will get post-Ebola aid from link with Warwick district

No cases have been reported in the Bo district for 47 days and life in the area - which suffered hundreds of deaths during the height of the epidemic in the summer - is starting to return to normal with pupils due to return to schools very soon.

Now, One World Link’s (OWL) Ebola Emergency Fund, to which people from Warwick district donated about £3,500 will be used to help prevent the disease from returning and spreading again.

One world link member Cllr Jane Knight said: “The whole point was to hold the money back until they were ready to use it and now the children are going to go back to school it is high risk because of the standard of the water and sanitation facilities they have.

“It is going back to basics to ensure it doesn’t happen again because they have to be very careful.

“They are saying it is now endemic in West Africa.”

Bo Ebola Task Force member Maada Fobay has contacted fellow OWL members in England to update them on the outcome of an executive meeting of the task force.

He said that Sierra Leone’s government has proposed for schools re-open in April but there will be no Primary School leavers’ examinations this year meaning that those pupils will have to repeat a year before moving on to secondary education.

Suggestions to prevent the return of Ebola include providing schools with hand washing facilities, buckets and cups for drinking water, first aid kits including gloves for handling those with suspected cases of the disease and training for three ‘Ebola focal’ teachers per school.

The task force will meet a group of teachers today (Friday).

Some 16 schools in Bo and Warwick district are linked through OWL with teachers having travelled to Sierra Leone during safer times.

The English schools have themselves raised about £600 for the Ebola cause.

For more information about WOL visit www.oneworldlink.org.uk