Student4Change Mobile Project go to Goderich and KrooBay Community Health Centres in Freetown meet community members, facilitating dialogue on safe clinics - particularly safe water and good sanitation.
It is Wednesday morning, about 9:00am and it is already hot. Young people are streaming into the Goderich Community Health Center, welcomed by the tired yet friendly faces of the community health workers. The Goderich community health center is beautifully situated next to the Atlantic Ocean, sheltered around large trees that help keep the health facility cool from the sun. Today the health center’s normal routine is interrupted as youth people from MamaYe's student4change mobile project have requested to hold a community meeting which will see the attendance of Goderich’s community health workers, community stakeholders, students, mothers, activists, decision makers, and local leaders. The hope is that the community meeting will ignite dialogue around the lack of sustainable and safe running water in Goderich community health center, in turn sparking action for change. This meeting is important, because youth in the student4change mobile project know that out of every 5 women that die everyday in Sierra Leone, 1 CAN BE SAVED when the risk of infection and disease is minimized. This is because infections are more likely to develop among women who have given birth and newborns if the water used in the facility is not clean. Infections thrive in environments when people are weaker than normal. Often after birth, mothers are weaker and less resistant. Furthermore they are scarred and these scars mean that the natural protection usually given by the skin against infection does not provide sufficient defense. We know that this meeting has to be beyond just gathering the community together; it is very much about saving more lives.The community meeting was opened by Foday Sillah, Student Engagement Leader (SEL) for the student4change project, followed by prayers and a welcome address by the Community Head (CH) who introduced Mr. Yamba, community health officer (CHO). Mr.Yamba highlighted constraints faced by the health facility, which were, Electricity supply, unavailability of Water, Inadequate Staffing System, lack of laboratory structure and equipmentThe discussion was followed by a personal story recounted by Mr. Abu Koomber, the Community Health Chairman who shared his passion for the development of Goderich Health Center after his son got sick and they could not use the community health center in Goderich. Mr. Koomber had to use a private health facility that quickly became quite costly. After that experience, he knew it did not have to be this way and that he could have accessed they same type of treatment at Goderich if the health facility was fully functioning and safe. His concern however transcends his personal story, he is also concerned with the fact that many women in the Goderich community choose to deliver at home, or with the help of a Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) as opposed to the health facility due to the unpredictability of medical supplies at the Goderich Health Center. Women not delivering or accessing the health center is a major problem according to Mr. Koomber because it leaves women vulnerable to higher rates of infection, disease, fistula and other pregnancy related issues.Goderich community members were impassioned throughout the meeting, students continued to push community members to ACT for their own change. Mr. Gershom Dove, community health inspector and pastor spoke to the issue of sanitation in not only the health center, but also to the community at large. Mr. Dove spoke to the barriers that prevent thorough sanitary standards in Goderich health center; for instance, the caretaker at Goderich health center is quite elderly and lacks the necessary support to adequately maintain proper hygiene practices.Mr. Dove expressed his gratitude for the facilitation of this community led dialogue, citing that the passion of the youth in the student4change mobile project has ‘jogged the consciousness of the Goderich community” to not give up in taking action for their own change.What next? What happens post community meeting? We will wait to see how the community mobilizes for its own change, we at the student4change mobile project want to see results, and each student choose to continue to support community led mobilization in what ever small way possible.