By Kristoff Kohlhagen | Project Leader
Both the rainy season and Kidsave’s newest project are getting underway in Sierra Leone. Project leader Ibrahim Kawa along with three experienced local social workers (hired in May), have been busily implementing the first stages of the project. Working closely with our U.S. team, the Sierra Leone team has incorporated important local knowledge into the Sierra Leone Family Visit Model protocol. At the same time the Sierra Leonean staff is familiarizing themselves with our mobile app and data collection system.
With a methodology developed in partnership with the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences to qualify outcomes for both the Ebola orphans and families participating in our program, results will be clear, measurable, and aid in building an ever-improving model. Of the currently 245 identified Ebola orphans living in a local interim care center, our current project budget allows us to assist 65 of them to attain the goal of full family integration.
This means that these children who have lost so much will finally have the chance to secure a loving family, a secure home, and get out of institutionalized living. Without your help many of these children would forever reside in an institution.
But there is still so much left to accomplish.
To help further strengthen our earlier and ongoing project’s participating families in Kenema, a week-long intensive training in how to build successful village savings and loan groups is set to be conducted at the end of June.
This method of village savings and loans is a small scale way for local businesswomen and men to pool their savings and reap larger investment opportunities than they would otherwise be able to pursue.
As Sierra Leone and the entire Mono River region struggles to recover from the Ebola epidemic we are thankful for your continued support and donations to help insure that the children who lost everything, including their families, can once again have a loving and secure family enviornment to call home.
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