\u201cLocal communities should not be seen simply as the source of problems or as victims,\u201d writes Libby Hoffman in an Alliance for Peacebuilding article<\/a> published this month (January 2015). \u201cEbola is not just a medical problem \u2013 it is a community problem, and this dimension is being largely ignored within the current international response.\u201d<\/p>\n Liberian peacebuilding alums Nathaniel Walker (CJP MA<\/a> \u201910) and Gwendolyn Myers (CJP Grad. Cert.<\/a> \u201914) offered similar sentiments in commentaries published in The Guardian<\/em> and the Liberian Daily Observer<\/em>, respectively.<\/p>\n \u201cCommunities that have taken Ebola prevention and control matters into their hands have recorded [a] significantly low number of cases,” wrote Myers in a Dec. 11 commentary<\/a>. \u201cWhereas, in communities that are yet to fully embrace the outbreak and to take action to avoid infection, we have seen an increase in transmission.\u201d<\/p>\n Local efforts include developing the Pen-Pen Peace Network, an initiative of motorcycle taxi drivers. The Network has communicated about Ebola prevention through text messages, billboards, social media and loud speakers, distributed 3,000 fact sheets through communities, and built handwashing sanitation stations for citizens, wrote Walker and co-author Kai Kuang in an Oct. 15 commentary<\/a>.<\/p>\n In another grassroots initiative, Vaiba Flomo (CJP Grad. Cert. \u201913) has rallied her close-knit Rock Hill community in Monrovia \u2013 where many of the 25,000 adults and children survive by hand-crushing rocks to sell for construction projects \u2013 to do health education. With her women\u2019s team (called GSA Rock Hill Community Women), Flomo has distributed buckets, chlorine, and soap to various groups and centers where youths and adults typically gather, including clothing shops, prayer bands, video clubs, and drug stores. In an impoverished community largely ignored by governmental agencies, Flomo and her team have received funding from the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa<\/a>.<\/p>\n Liberia is still recovering from a brutal civil war (as is Sierra Leone, one of the other West African countries hit hard by Ebola). For Walker and Myers, community-driven efforts toward Ebola prevention are vital not only to eradicate the disease, but to preserve the fragile peacebuilding steps that have been taken in recent years to heal these communities. (Guinea, the third West African country widely affected by Ebola, has suffered from political violence, but not outright civil war.)<\/p>\n In both Liberia and Sierra Leone, peace remains tenuous and distrust runs high (in many of these communities victims and perpetrators are living side-by-side), so fighting Ebola is intimately tied with communities\u2019 ability to transcend past transgressions and develop open and honest communication.<\/p>\n \u201cLack of trust within communities is the unseen but powerful inhibiter of Ebola prevention and treatment initiatives,\u201d writes Hoffman, whose charitable foundation, Catalyst for Peace<\/a>, is the main U.S. backer of Fambul Tok<\/a>, a Sierra Leonean peacebuilding initiative.<\/p>\n \u201cConversely, empowered and trusted local voices and leadership magnify the success of prevention efforts, and they do so while strengthening community capacity for post-Ebola recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n Hoffman writes that building trust in communities actually provides a \u201csocial immunity\u201d that goes beyond the disease at hand, and into the underlying fabric of society, leaving communities \u201cstronger to face the next crisis, whatever it may be.\u201d<\/p>\n Fambul Tok community members in Sierra Leone have been using their hard-earned trust to distribute soap to their communities, teach about prevention techniques, and develop the Bridging Communities Network, which functions much like the Pen-Pen Network in Liberia. [Hoffman attended EMU\u2019s Summer Peacebuilding Institute (SPI) in 1996 and 2000; she has employed CJP graduates to work with Fambul Tok and sent Fambul Tok staffers to SPI sessions.]<\/p>\n As an example Michaela Ashwood<\/a>, who attended SPI \u201914, heads a group called Peace Mothers under Fambul Tok. These mothers have been distributing soap and promoting handwashing in six mainly rural districts of Sierra Leone, seeking to reach about 250,000 households per district, often by going door to door.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that the outbreak will end when actors at all levels \u2013 the national and district governments, community-based organizations and the health sector \u2013 work cooperatively to engage local communities,\u201d said a \u201cproject report\u201d released Sept. 2, 2014, by the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, founded by Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee<\/a> (MA \u201907 in conflict transformation<\/a>).<\/p>\n This seems to be happening at last. The tide seems to be turning from Ebola in West Africa. On Jan. 15, BBC News reported<\/a> that weekly UN figures show a decline in new Ebola cases in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. Even though the \u201cdeath toll from the world’s worst Ebola outbreak has reached 8,429 with 21,296 cases so far,\u201d schools in Guinea opened Jan. 19 after a five-month closure and the national daily infection rate in Sierra Leone is two-thirds lower now than it was in November. Liberia had its lowest weekly total since June and all three countries \u201chave sufficient capacity to bury all the people known to have died from Ebola,\u201d said the BBC.<\/p>\n In Sierra Leone, New York Times<\/em> reporter Jeffrey Gettleman has found that the locals are proving amazingly resilient.<\/p>\n \u201cVigor seems to be part of Sierra Leone\u2019s national ethos,\u201d he wrote in a Jan. 10, 2015, article<\/a> on Sierra Leone\u2019s passionate surfers, \u201cespecially now, when so many people are fixated on staying healthy. Freetown\u2019s streets thicken at dawn with men and women decked out in the latest and brightest spandex \u2014 jogging, stretching, jumping rope, or doing situps and push-ups in the grass.\u201d<\/p>\n If one visits Gwendolyn Myers\u2019 Facebook page<\/a>, you\u2019ll see that interspersed with updates on trainings in handwashing to stop the spread of Ebola, are fun photos of Myers in colorful clothing and high heels, sometimes with color-coordinated decorations around her neck and in her hair. It\u2019s as if she\u2019s saying, \u201cWe are not all gloom and doom here! We\u2019re resilient Liberians and proud of it!\u201d<\/p>\n Leymah Gbowee will be the featured speaker<\/a> at a Feb. 7 fundraising dinner<\/a> to support families who have lost loved ones or been displaced due to Ebola<\/a>. The money raised will be distributed\u00a0by the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa<\/a> to two Liberian service organizations founded by alumnae of EMU’s Women\u2019s Peacebuilding Leadership Program<\/a>: GSA Rock Hill Community Women in Monrovia, founded by Vaiba Flomo, and Messengers of Peace, a youth outreach group founded by Gwendolyn Myers. To attend the dinner<\/a> or f<\/em>or more information, click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Nathaniel](\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2015\/01\/Nathaniel-Walker-4_web-300x181.jpg\")
<\/a>Women are playing important roles<\/h3>\n
Gaining strength to handle any crisis<\/h3>\n
The tide may be turning<\/h3>\n