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15-03-2016 | Latest News , Africa

Interview with Kemoh Amara, 29, Safe and dignified burial team member

ENG

Ebola outbreak – interview with 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. Below, an interview with Alpha.

 

TRANSCRIPT:

KEMOH AMARA, 29, SAFE AND DIGNIFIED BURIAL TEAM MEMBER, KAILAHUN DISTRICT, SIERRA LEONE

00:00 – 00:27 I became a member of SDB (safe and dignified burial team) during the outbreak because, when the outbreak was in the country, there was no one to help the community and the country as a whole. So, we are former volunteers so we volunteered to help the country as a whole so that the disease can be controlled.

00:20 – 00:37 I was, I was scared because of certain reasons. Many people were stigmatizing us, doing many things, backbiting, but we are a volunteer, that is our job, that is why we are volunteers for the Red Cross.

(How did people react to you?)

00:37 – 00:53 I was driven from my residence. I cannot touch any one of my relatives until the sickness minimizes in the country before ever my family accepting my back home.

(How did it feel to be stigmatized?)

00:53 – 01:11 I feel uncomfortable. They tell me that I’m going to bury someone which is having Ebola. So, at the moment I return home, they may imagine that I’m still having the sickness that the dead person was carrying.

(Talking about trying to see his family but not being able to)

01:11 – 01:19 I may attempt to see them but they are afraid of me. I normally greet them hi, hi. And pass.

(Answering a question, how do you normally greet someone when there is no Ebola?)

01:19 – 01:28 I normally greet them, now there is no more Ebola, I shake their hands, we are now living together, doing things in common.

(Talking about having forgiven his family for abandoning him)

01:28 – 01:39 In my own heart, they were still my family but they abandoned me because of the work that I’m doing

01:39 ENDS


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