My thesis on barriers to health care for women in Sierra Leone was officially submitted last week. For anyone who is interested in reading it, I have publicly posted it online: Clare's thesis via GoogleDocs. You are welcome to read and share with others. Please feel free to share any comments on the work with me via the blog or privately by email.
I would like to express my deep thanks to all the women in Sierra Leone who participated in this research, to all my friends and colleagues in Sierra Leone who helped me with this work, to my supervisors at Carleton for their guidance and support, and to my family and friends for their love and encouragement.
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Research update
I haven’t yet posted too much about the research I am doing here for my thesis, so I thought I would do a little update. I now have only 10 interviews left to do out of a total of 25. I am going to add 2 more interviews (hopefully) with key informants, so I will probably have a total of 27 interviews when I’m finished.
For those who don’t know, the research I am doing here is for my thesis, for my MA in International Affairs from Carleton University in Canada. I completed my coursework at Carleton last year (08-09) and just have the thesis left to do. I am doing the fieldwork here in Sierra Leone, and will finish the writing when I return to Canada. I’m hoping to graduate in the spring.
My research is on barriers to accessing health care for poor, rural women in Sierra Leone. I am using Mapaki as a case study. The research takes a qualitative approach – I’m trying to understand how women here perceive barriers to health care as well as what barriers actually exist. I’m interviewing 20 women from the community and 5-7 key informants, people in leadership positions in the community, or those that are involved in health work or service delivery.
The interview process so far has been quite a learning experience. For many of the women, this is one of the first times they are really being asked their opinion about health services, and it seems to me as though this is something they have not given much thought to before. Sometimes the interviews are difficult because the woman I’m interviewing just doesn’t really have much to say. Also, with the language, cultural and class barriers, it’s very challenging to make women who are shy feel more comfortable. It’s difficult just to be able to have a casual chat with a woman before beginning the formal interview when you are using an interpreter. It’s also difficult to interview people who are currently suffering with a health issue when there’s nothing I can really do to help, except to sympathise.
In some of the interviews I have gotten very interesting nuggets of information, like stories about the effect of the belief in witchcraft on health, or about how fees for health services have affected people. I am looking forward to finishing the interviews and really being able to start the analysis to pull out all the interesting bits of information. As my supervisor told me, sometimes it’s hard to see what’s interesting or important when you’re in the middle of doing the interviews, and it’s only afterwards when you can really see the results of your work.
One thing I have struggled with so far is getting official information on health statistics and the health system here in Sierra Leone. There is some information on the Ministry of Health’s website, but a lot of it is old and outdated. Last week when I was in Freetown, I visited the Ministry of Health offices to see if I could find out anything, get copies of reports, etc. Unfortunately, the whole planning department was out of town for the whole week, so there wasn’t even anyone there I could talk to. Luckily, I have made contact with a VSO volunteer from Australia working in the Ministry offices, and I think she will be able to help me with access to some reports and information.
I also just did an interview this morning with someone from the District Council, and they let me know about the launch of the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey results that is happening this Thursday. I will be able to get a copy of that report on Thursday or Friday, and that should have a lot of good data. That will really be helpful to my work, and I'm so glad it's being released before I leave. A breakthrough in the search for data!
With only 2 weeks left before I leave it seems like there is a lot of research work remaining. Wish me luck in getting it all done!
For those who don’t know, the research I am doing here is for my thesis, for my MA in International Affairs from Carleton University in Canada. I completed my coursework at Carleton last year (08-09) and just have the thesis left to do. I am doing the fieldwork here in Sierra Leone, and will finish the writing when I return to Canada. I’m hoping to graduate in the spring.
My research is on barriers to accessing health care for poor, rural women in Sierra Leone. I am using Mapaki as a case study. The research takes a qualitative approach – I’m trying to understand how women here perceive barriers to health care as well as what barriers actually exist. I’m interviewing 20 women from the community and 5-7 key informants, people in leadership positions in the community, or those that are involved in health work or service delivery.
The interview process so far has been quite a learning experience. For many of the women, this is one of the first times they are really being asked their opinion about health services, and it seems to me as though this is something they have not given much thought to before. Sometimes the interviews are difficult because the woman I’m interviewing just doesn’t really have much to say. Also, with the language, cultural and class barriers, it’s very challenging to make women who are shy feel more comfortable. It’s difficult just to be able to have a casual chat with a woman before beginning the formal interview when you are using an interpreter. It’s also difficult to interview people who are currently suffering with a health issue when there’s nothing I can really do to help, except to sympathise.
In some of the interviews I have gotten very interesting nuggets of information, like stories about the effect of the belief in witchcraft on health, or about how fees for health services have affected people. I am looking forward to finishing the interviews and really being able to start the analysis to pull out all the interesting bits of information. As my supervisor told me, sometimes it’s hard to see what’s interesting or important when you’re in the middle of doing the interviews, and it’s only afterwards when you can really see the results of your work.
One thing I have struggled with so far is getting official information on health statistics and the health system here in Sierra Leone. There is some information on the Ministry of Health’s website, but a lot of it is old and outdated. Last week when I was in Freetown, I visited the Ministry of Health offices to see if I could find out anything, get copies of reports, etc. Unfortunately, the whole planning department was out of town for the whole week, so there wasn’t even anyone there I could talk to. Luckily, I have made contact with a VSO volunteer from Australia working in the Ministry offices, and I think she will be able to help me with access to some reports and information.
I also just did an interview this morning with someone from the District Council, and they let me know about the launch of the 2008 National Demographic and Health Survey results that is happening this Thursday. I will be able to get a copy of that report on Thursday or Friday, and that should have a lot of good data. That will really be helpful to my work, and I'm so glad it's being released before I leave. A breakthrough in the search for data!
With only 2 weeks left before I leave it seems like there is a lot of research work remaining. Wish me luck in getting it all done!
Friday, October 16, 2009
The week that was
As you can probably tell from the lack of posts this week, it’s been a bit of a busy week. We had a visitor in Mapaki for 3 days, Anne-Reed, who works with Friends of African Village Libraries (FAVL). She is here in Sierra Leone visiting libraries and scouting for a possible expansion of FAVL’s work into Sierra Leone. She was looking at the cdpeace community library in Mapaki as an example of a community library here.
TMT, cdpeace’s Executive Director, has just arrived back in the country, so we had several meetings this week to confirm plans for my next couple of months here. I will continue with my school visits and teacher training (our first teacher workshop is coming up this Sunday). The twinning program is getting started, with the first letter having gone out to schools in Canada already, so I will have school twinning work to do as well. I am also hoping to do a needs assessment with staff in the next couple of weeks now that TMT is here.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here almost 6 weeks already and have only a little over two months left. Suddenly it seems as though there’s a lot to do in the next 9 weeks. In addition to my cdpeace work, I am hoping to start my interviews for my thesis research this week. I have been waiting for the final approval from the ethics board on some revisions to my questions, and I need to get more copies of the consent forms made. Unfortunately, I have not been successful thus far in getting the printer in Mapaki working, so that means if I want to print or copy something I have to do it either at the cdpeace office in Mayagba or in Makeni or Magburaka. But now I think everything is in place and I will be starting this weekend.
On the topic of research, I had an interesting conversation with one of the people who is going to help me with translation, a friend form Mapaki, Michael. I reviewed the questions and the letter of information about the research with him to make sure he understood everything. For the most part it was fine. However, I had some difficulty explaining to him the concept of research ethics and what it meant to have ethics approval from the university. The gap between the requirements of academia in the developed world, and the understanding and knowledge of people here was evident and it seems silly to even have to include this information for people here I will be interviewing, as it really has no meaning for them. But, as the ethics board requires it, I will proceed as planned :-)
I’m in Makeni today and tomorrow and then doing the first teacher workshop on Sunday, so probably no posts for the next couple of days.
TMT, cdpeace’s Executive Director, has just arrived back in the country, so we had several meetings this week to confirm plans for my next couple of months here. I will continue with my school visits and teacher training (our first teacher workshop is coming up this Sunday). The twinning program is getting started, with the first letter having gone out to schools in Canada already, so I will have school twinning work to do as well. I am also hoping to do a needs assessment with staff in the next couple of weeks now that TMT is here.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here almost 6 weeks already and have only a little over two months left. Suddenly it seems as though there’s a lot to do in the next 9 weeks. In addition to my cdpeace work, I am hoping to start my interviews for my thesis research this week. I have been waiting for the final approval from the ethics board on some revisions to my questions, and I need to get more copies of the consent forms made. Unfortunately, I have not been successful thus far in getting the printer in Mapaki working, so that means if I want to print or copy something I have to do it either at the cdpeace office in Mayagba or in Makeni or Magburaka. But now I think everything is in place and I will be starting this weekend.
On the topic of research, I had an interesting conversation with one of the people who is going to help me with translation, a friend form Mapaki, Michael. I reviewed the questions and the letter of information about the research with him to make sure he understood everything. For the most part it was fine. However, I had some difficulty explaining to him the concept of research ethics and what it meant to have ethics approval from the university. The gap between the requirements of academia in the developed world, and the understanding and knowledge of people here was evident and it seems silly to even have to include this information for people here I will be interviewing, as it really has no meaning for them. But, as the ethics board requires it, I will proceed as planned :-)
I’m in Makeni today and tomorrow and then doing the first teacher workshop on Sunday, so probably no posts for the next couple of days.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Visit to Government Hospital Makeni
Yesterday I visited Government Hospital in Makeni. I have made friends with two VSO volunteer nurses who are working there (Vicki and Susie) and they showed me around. Seeing the health care system here definitely makes me appreciate our health system in Canada.
The Government Hospital in Makeni is the main government-supported hospital for Bombali District (the district Mapaki is in). There is another government hospital that is actually closer to Mapaki, in Magboroka, but that is in Tonkolili District. I am hoping to visit the Magboroka hospital as well.
There are 4 wards at the hospital in Makeni: male, female, children and maternal, and a total of 86 beds. If you’ve ever read about, been to, or seen photos of a hospital in a poor country, you probably have an idea of what it looked like. If not, I will try to describe it for you. The facilities are very basic. There are about 20 beds on each ward, and most of the beds had patients in them. The beds are close together - no such thing as a private room here. Often family members surrounded the beds as well. Some people appeared very ill, and others not, but it’s difficult to tell from appearances. The equipment and beds generally seemed old. Each bed has a mosquito net hanging above it. Each ward has at least one nurse’s aide and sometimes several staffing it. Patients are fed a few times a day, but the food is pretty minimal – tea and bread for breakfast, an egg and some bread midday, and then rice with sauce in the evening. A patient's family usually supplements the food provided by the hospital.
Currently there are 2 doctors on staff at the hospital, both Sierra Leoneans, one of whom is a specialist surgeon in orthopaedics. There are 8 nurses and about 120 nursing aides. The nursing aides are the ones who really run the day-to-day activities of the hospital. Apparently here they do many of the same things that an RN in Canada would do. Some have many years of experience and are very competent. Others have almost no training – they do a 2 week training course when they first start at the hospital and that’s it. A matron (head nurse) might earn around Le 300,000 per month, and a regular nurse about Le 200,000. Nurses aides earn even less. Qualified nurses often work 2 jobs (either at another hospital, a private clinic, or they run their own work on the side) to make ends meet.
There is no running water and the electricity for the hospital is from a generator, which I understand is not always totally reliable. There is one operating theatre. I was told that they often don’t actually use the generator during surgeries, for fear of it going off part way through. They just do them when the room is very bright with daylight.
In terms of fees, from what I understand, fees are really set individually at each hospital or clinic – this seems to be basically at the discretion of the doctors that are in charge. In many cases, fees are charged that aren’t “official” fees in terms of being mandated and/or approved by government. As an example of fees, a c-section at the hospital would cost about Le 150,000, and an X-ray Le 40,000.
While we were on the tour, when we stopped in the women’s ward, the mother of one of the patients came to tell us that her daughter’s dressing (she’d had surgery I gather) had not been changed in two days. The nurse’s aide who was on the ward said she had informed the people who were responsible for this, but that they still had not come to change the dressing. Unfortunately, my impression is that this standard of care is more the norm than the exception.
Now that I have ethics clearance for my thesis research, I will most likely be writing more about health care here as I start my interviews and continue to do observational visits like this one to government hospital. Hope you find it as interesting as I do.
The Government Hospital in Makeni is the main government-supported hospital for Bombali District (the district Mapaki is in). There is another government hospital that is actually closer to Mapaki, in Magboroka, but that is in Tonkolili District. I am hoping to visit the Magboroka hospital as well.
There are 4 wards at the hospital in Makeni: male, female, children and maternal, and a total of 86 beds. If you’ve ever read about, been to, or seen photos of a hospital in a poor country, you probably have an idea of what it looked like. If not, I will try to describe it for you. The facilities are very basic. There are about 20 beds on each ward, and most of the beds had patients in them. The beds are close together - no such thing as a private room here. Often family members surrounded the beds as well. Some people appeared very ill, and others not, but it’s difficult to tell from appearances. The equipment and beds generally seemed old. Each bed has a mosquito net hanging above it. Each ward has at least one nurse’s aide and sometimes several staffing it. Patients are fed a few times a day, but the food is pretty minimal – tea and bread for breakfast, an egg and some bread midday, and then rice with sauce in the evening. A patient's family usually supplements the food provided by the hospital.
Currently there are 2 doctors on staff at the hospital, both Sierra Leoneans, one of whom is a specialist surgeon in orthopaedics. There are 8 nurses and about 120 nursing aides. The nursing aides are the ones who really run the day-to-day activities of the hospital. Apparently here they do many of the same things that an RN in Canada would do. Some have many years of experience and are very competent. Others have almost no training – they do a 2 week training course when they first start at the hospital and that’s it. A matron (head nurse) might earn around Le 300,000 per month, and a regular nurse about Le 200,000. Nurses aides earn even less. Qualified nurses often work 2 jobs (either at another hospital, a private clinic, or they run their own work on the side) to make ends meet.
There is no running water and the electricity for the hospital is from a generator, which I understand is not always totally reliable. There is one operating theatre. I was told that they often don’t actually use the generator during surgeries, for fear of it going off part way through. They just do them when the room is very bright with daylight.
In terms of fees, from what I understand, fees are really set individually at each hospital or clinic – this seems to be basically at the discretion of the doctors that are in charge. In many cases, fees are charged that aren’t “official” fees in terms of being mandated and/or approved by government. As an example of fees, a c-section at the hospital would cost about Le 150,000, and an X-ray Le 40,000.
While we were on the tour, when we stopped in the women’s ward, the mother of one of the patients came to tell us that her daughter’s dressing (she’d had surgery I gather) had not been changed in two days. The nurse’s aide who was on the ward said she had informed the people who were responsible for this, but that they still had not come to change the dressing. Unfortunately, my impression is that this standard of care is more the norm than the exception.
Now that I have ethics clearance for my thesis research, I will most likely be writing more about health care here as I start my interviews and continue to do observational visits like this one to government hospital. Hope you find it as interesting as I do.
Monday, September 28, 2009
More on Makeni - September 25
So this is now my fourth day in Makeni. Unfortunately, the internet hasn’t been working very well all week in the UN office, so I’ve had some trouble getting online. Heidi assures me that it’s not usually like this, I guess I’ve just picked a bad week to be here. Too bad, I was looking forward to a more reliable connection than I have in Mapaki, but I guess not.
The issues with communications (bad internet connections, lack of cell phone signal, my inability to send text messages to Canada) has been one of my biggest frustrations with being here so far. It’s difficult not to be able to communicate with people when you want to, especially with my friends and family back home. It also makes it difficult to get work done. Poor communications prevent you from doing work because you need to communicate in order to do it, and they also waste time because you spend time fiddling with the internet or your phone or whatever instead of working on something. Sigh. I know I will be more appreciative of our reliable telecommunications network when I get back home!
I want to describe Heidi’s house, where I am staying while in Makeni. The house is a compound, meaning it has walls around it and a gate. In addition to the main house, which has about 8 rooms plus a big living room and a bathroom, there is a second, smaller house in the back. Lecturers that work in the mental health program that KK works on stay in the back house when they are in Makeni. Everything is surrounded by the wall. The gate is always kept locked for security reasons, and there is a guard at night. All of this makes it sound like Makeni is very dangerous or something, but that isn’t really the case. I haven’t felt unsafe or worried for my security the whole time I’ve been here. It’s more to guard against theft. Especially since it would be known that white people are living in the house, there is a greater risk for theft because it is believed that there would be more to steal.
A few other stories from the past few days: Two nights ago (Wednesday night) we went to the launch of a new Amnesty International campaign to reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone (I mentioned this in a previous post, along with a link to some information about the campaign). This kick-off event was part of a tour Amnesty is doing around the country – the first stop was in Freetown, and they were going to a few other places in addition to Makeni as well. The launch was held outdoors at the football “stadium” (it’s not a stadium in the sense that you would normally picture it – it was just a huge dirt pitch with some goal posts where football is played). The event started about 2 hours late. This seems to be fairly typical here. The Secretary-General of Amnesty was here though, as well as the Paramount Chief in the area and a few other dignitaries. Following the speeches, there was entertainment, local Sierra Leonean dancers and singers. It was fun, pop type of stuff with some dancing as well. There was quite a crush of people there, but we managed to situate ourselves right in the front, so we had a pretty good view of the entertainment.
I think that a campaign around maternal mortality is a good thing - according to the WHO statistics, the rate in Sierra Leone is one of the highest in the world. The two main issues I think are the inability to access medical care because of cost or distance, and the poor availability of care because of staff shortages or poor training, lack of supplies, etc. For example, I visited a clinic in Makonkorie in Gbonkolenken chiefdom when I was there - they had almost nothing there. They didn't even have scissors or forceps to use during a delivery. From what I have seen from the Amnesty campaign so far, it focuses primarily on cost and transportation barriers. In my opinion, the supply side problems in health care here are equally as important.
Speaking of health and access - I got conditional approval from Carleton's research ethics committee on my research today! Yay!! I have to make a few changes and send it back, but they are minor, and it's nice knowing I'll be able to go ahead as planned. I'm hoping to start interviews within the next couple of weeks.
Oh, I also had my first taste of something called a killdriver at the Amnesty event. It’s a cookie, very similar to a shortbread cookie taste. You can buy it from sellers on the street. It’s called a killdriver apparently because it’s so good that when drivers eat it they crash and die. Funny, hey?
Last night we had a fun evening. In the late afternoon we went over to the Wussum hotel, the nicest hotel in Makeni. They have a pool, and you can swim for only 10,000 Leones (about $3). I didn’t swim, not having a bathing suit with me here in Makeni, but the others did. Then we sat around and had supper and drinks (chicken shwarma, yum!) and watched “Africa Magic” – movies from Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood – apparently the third largest film industry after Hollywood and Bollywood). The Africa Magic films are generally terrible, or so I’m told. The one we half-watched while sitting around wasn’t much of a gem. The acting is bad and the stories are silly. But it’s still neat to see African popular film. I also very much enjoyed the tv, electricity, cold drinks and food available at Wussum. All in all, a good night!
p.s. no new photos until I am back in Mapaki as I didn’t bring the cord for my camera with me.
The issues with communications (bad internet connections, lack of cell phone signal, my inability to send text messages to Canada) has been one of my biggest frustrations with being here so far. It’s difficult not to be able to communicate with people when you want to, especially with my friends and family back home. It also makes it difficult to get work done. Poor communications prevent you from doing work because you need to communicate in order to do it, and they also waste time because you spend time fiddling with the internet or your phone or whatever instead of working on something. Sigh. I know I will be more appreciative of our reliable telecommunications network when I get back home!
I want to describe Heidi’s house, where I am staying while in Makeni. The house is a compound, meaning it has walls around it and a gate. In addition to the main house, which has about 8 rooms plus a big living room and a bathroom, there is a second, smaller house in the back. Lecturers that work in the mental health program that KK works on stay in the back house when they are in Makeni. Everything is surrounded by the wall. The gate is always kept locked for security reasons, and there is a guard at night. All of this makes it sound like Makeni is very dangerous or something, but that isn’t really the case. I haven’t felt unsafe or worried for my security the whole time I’ve been here. It’s more to guard against theft. Especially since it would be known that white people are living in the house, there is a greater risk for theft because it is believed that there would be more to steal.
A few other stories from the past few days: Two nights ago (Wednesday night) we went to the launch of a new Amnesty International campaign to reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone (I mentioned this in a previous post, along with a link to some information about the campaign). This kick-off event was part of a tour Amnesty is doing around the country – the first stop was in Freetown, and they were going to a few other places in addition to Makeni as well. The launch was held outdoors at the football “stadium” (it’s not a stadium in the sense that you would normally picture it – it was just a huge dirt pitch with some goal posts where football is played). The event started about 2 hours late. This seems to be fairly typical here. The Secretary-General of Amnesty was here though, as well as the Paramount Chief in the area and a few other dignitaries. Following the speeches, there was entertainment, local Sierra Leonean dancers and singers. It was fun, pop type of stuff with some dancing as well. There was quite a crush of people there, but we managed to situate ourselves right in the front, so we had a pretty good view of the entertainment.
I think that a campaign around maternal mortality is a good thing - according to the WHO statistics, the rate in Sierra Leone is one of the highest in the world. The two main issues I think are the inability to access medical care because of cost or distance, and the poor availability of care because of staff shortages or poor training, lack of supplies, etc. For example, I visited a clinic in Makonkorie in Gbonkolenken chiefdom when I was there - they had almost nothing there. They didn't even have scissors or forceps to use during a delivery. From what I have seen from the Amnesty campaign so far, it focuses primarily on cost and transportation barriers. In my opinion, the supply side problems in health care here are equally as important.
Speaking of health and access - I got conditional approval from Carleton's research ethics committee on my research today! Yay!! I have to make a few changes and send it back, but they are minor, and it's nice knowing I'll be able to go ahead as planned. I'm hoping to start interviews within the next couple of weeks.
Oh, I also had my first taste of something called a killdriver at the Amnesty event. It’s a cookie, very similar to a shortbread cookie taste. You can buy it from sellers on the street. It’s called a killdriver apparently because it’s so good that when drivers eat it they crash and die. Funny, hey?
Last night we had a fun evening. In the late afternoon we went over to the Wussum hotel, the nicest hotel in Makeni. They have a pool, and you can swim for only 10,000 Leones (about $3). I didn’t swim, not having a bathing suit with me here in Makeni, but the others did. Then we sat around and had supper and drinks (chicken shwarma, yum!) and watched “Africa Magic” – movies from Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood – apparently the third largest film industry after Hollywood and Bollywood). The Africa Magic films are generally terrible, or so I’m told. The one we half-watched while sitting around wasn’t much of a gem. The acting is bad and the stories are silly. But it’s still neat to see African popular film. I also very much enjoyed the tv, electricity, cold drinks and food available at Wussum. All in all, a good night!
p.s. no new photos until I am back in Mapaki as I didn’t bring the cord for my camera with me.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Welcome to the blog!
I am creating this blog as a way to share information and updates with family, friends, the Carleton University community, and the wider world while I am in Sierra Leone from September to December 2009. I am going to Sierra Leone to work as an intern with the Centre for Development and Peace Education (cdpeace). My internship is part of the Students for Development Program, and is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (thank you CIDA!) and run through the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC).A little bit of background: I put this internship together as a result of an ongoing relationship with cdpeace, developed through a Canadian NGO called Peaceful Schools International (PSI). I sit on the PSI board and got involved with helping cdpeace with fundraising work from Canada. Ever since learning about cdpeace and their work, I have wanted to visit Sierra Leone and work with them on the ground.
This is a very hopeful time for Sierra Leone. After ten years of civil war, the country has now had almost 7 years of peace. While still ranked the second poorest country in the world with a life expectancy of 40, highest infant mortality rate, 30% of the population displaced, traumatized child combatants and victims, and a literacy rate under 30%, there has been a relative level of stability, two successful national elections, a strengthening civil society, and key issues that led to the civil war such as control of the diamond mining areas are receiving international attention and action.
In Sierra Leone, I will be living primarily in the village of Mapaki (Google earth view of Mapaki). While Mapaki may lack some of the normal modern conveniences I am used to (for example, running water), they do have a library powered by solar panels and a satellite internet connection, so I’ll be able to stay in touch via this blog, email and Skype.
I will be doing two key things as part of my internship. I will be supporting cdpeace on a peace education project, a joint project with Peaceful Schools International. This will include supporting teacher training, and facilitating communication between schools in Sierra Leone and their twinned schools in Canada and the US. I will also be helping cdpeace with more administrative and organizational work. The cdpeace buildings were unfortunately destroyed during the war, and the organization is now working on getting fully up and running again, including re-building their facilities. I will be supporting them in everything from basic computer training, to fundraising and financial management, to program set up and evaluation.
While I am in Sierra Leone, I will also be doing field work for my MA thesis (at Carleton University's Norman Paterson School of International Affairs) on barriers to accessing health care, looking at Sierra Leone as a case study. So it’s a dual purpose trip. I will be blogging about the research experience as well as my work with cdpeace.
I invite you to become involved in this journey with me in whatever way you can. Here are some suggestions:
- Read my blog and comment on what I post!
- Learn about Sierra Leone specifically, and Africa more generally (ask me for some good books, or check out some of the links and blogs I've posted).
- Donate to the work of cdpeace or PSI.
- If you are a teacher, invite me to come speak to your class when I return in January. I'm putting together a presentation suitable for students from elementary up and will, with your permission, invite students to create messages for children in Sierra Leone.
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