B-roll of Kemoh Amara, 29, Safe and dignified burial team member, Sierra Leone Red Cross Society
Two years following the declaration of an Ebola virus disease outbreak in West Africa, communities and governments in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are moving into the recovery phase, determined to make their countries stronger before Ebola decimated families, economies and health care systems.
Through its five pillared response, the IFRC, in support of the three affected National Societies, played a key role in helping to bring the outbreak to an end. Thousands of volunteers were involved in contact tracing, case management, beneficiary communications and social mobilization, psychosocial support, and safe and dignified burials (SDB).
Teams were stigmatized and discriminated against, and were often on the receiving end of verbal and physical violence by communities, scared and unsure of what was happening.
Kemoh Amara, 29, was one of the first Red Cross volunteers to be trained in SDB in Kailahun district, the epicentre of the outbreak in Sierra Leone. A Red Cross volunteer before the outbreak, Kemoh says he signed up for the extremely risky task of providing SDBs, because no one else was.
TIME CODE:
00:00 – 00:13 MS of Kemoh and his family preparing cassava leaves for dinner
00:13 – 00:23 CU of hands reaching into pot of cassava leaves
00:23 – 00:28 MS of Kemoh preparing cassava leaves
00:28 – 00:34 CU of woman’s hands peeling vegetable
00:34 – 00:41 MS of woman peeling vegetable
00:41 – 01:11 WS of Kemoh and family preparing vegetables from a few slightly different angles
01:11 ENDS