News & Views

FRONTAGE AFRICA, June 22 2016 --- The Pentecostal Mission Unlimited (PMU-Liberia) has ended an eight month Ebola community action platform (E-CAP 2) project, calling on community members to promote good health.  

In an exclusive interview with FrontPageAfrica over the weekend at his ELWA office, the Program Manager of the organization explained that the project was intended to promote community health, [and] ensure community resilience to diseases in Liberia.

U.S. Embassy Charge d’Affaires, Sheila Paskman, has called on Liberians to take full responsibility for their lives by working in their respective local communities to achieve the health platform set up by Mercy Corps in collaboration with the Ebola Action Community Platform (ECAP2) project.

Published on Tuesday 31 May in The Daily Observer.

PAYNESVILLE, Montserrado – Mercy Corps, an international non-governmental organization, held a two-day national conference to celebrate achievements of its community health mobilization program.

Read more at The Bush Chicken website

by Gbatemah Senah

The conference took place at the Golden Gate Hotel near the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in Paynesville. Representatives from the Ministry of Health and more than 20 NGOs’ which participated in the second phase of the Ebola Community Action Platform program are attending the conference.

May 15, 2016 --- Gbarpolu County is one of the most newly established counties in Liberia. It is an incredibly diverse county with many cultures and tribes, and has high levels of poverty, a challenging road network – much of it next to impassable in the rainy season - as well as a lack of network connectivity.

Community engagement helped turn the tide of Ebola, and will be critical in combatting this latest outbreak. But there’s a broader lesson here. If we are to prevent future epidemics, communities need to remain actively engaged in efforts to strengthen the health sector.

This is not to say we don’t also need to look at quality. We do. We need more trained health workers and doctors. We need more clinics in very remote areas. We need better water infrastructure and latrines.

FRONT PAGE AFRICA ---- In response to the recent outbreak of Ebola in Guinea, Mercy Corps expanded its social mobilization activities in Liberia's border areas so that communities can be better prepared against possible flare-ups of the devastating virus.

Following Liberia’s devastating civil war, two organisations, Mercy Corps and IREX, helped establish and strengthen community radio stations across the country. After the crisis these were flagship projects, aiming to give communities greater voice in development and peacebuilding.

Many of these stations again partnered with the two organizations under the Ebola Community Action Platform (ECAP), funded by USAID, which was Liberia’s largest consortium of organizations working on the Ebola response. 

Building trust through community radio partnerships

A new SMS hotline has been launched in Liberia to enable partners, Community Health Committees and ECAP 2 community members to reach Mercy Corps with any concerns or feedback on the program.

The system has been launched to increase accountability and to help ensure program effectiveness through our network.

It is free to text 3227 ('ECAP') on Lonestar, Novafone and Cellcom for all those participating in ECAP 2.

“I am working with marginalised communities where many didn’t believe in this Ebola issue. Even late last year they thought if you carried people to the Ebola Treatment Unit they would kill you."

"We have been able to change this. The community calls for help if someone is sick and every time someone dies, they call the burial team. This is because we have been going into the community, talking to them, and going on the radio to spread awareness."

Rose T. Teah from the Lutheran Church of Liberia is Mobiliser of the Week for Grand Cape Mount County.

GBARNGA, LIBERIA, January 10, 2015 --- Today at a ceremony in Gbarnga, Bong, over 200 community educators pledged to support efforts to drive Ebola out of Liberia by running high-impact awareness campaigns in communities across the county. 

The launch is part of the Ebola Community Action Platform (ECAP), funded by USAID and developed by Mercy Corps Liberia and Population Services International, which is helping NGOs engage in total over 3,000 communities by training trusted local Communicators to provide key information on the Ebola virus.