Skip to main content

Sierra Leone: Landslide and Floods Recovery Bulletin #7, 31 October 2017

Countries
Sierra Leone
Sources
UNCT Sierra Leone
+ 1 more
Publication date

This weekly update is produced by UNDP in collaboration with the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office in Sierra Leone, liaising with the Office of National Security and development partners.

Situation overview

Following the landslides and floods that hit Freetown and surrounding areas on 14 August 2017, the UN system in Sierra Leone continues to support national recovery.

In addition to addressing the urgent needs of those most affected, medium and long term assessments and Action Plans are being put in place under national leadership to ensure risk mitigation and protect the people of Sierra Leone from future tragedy.

For the purpose of information and coordination, relief and recovery efforts are detailed here.

Recovery efforts

HEALTH

GIZ

  • The German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is financing the project “Health Systems Strengthening and Epidemic Prevention” in Sierra Leone for three years (from May 2016 to December 2019). The project is jointly implemented by the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS) of Sierra Leone and the German Technical Cooperation. As part of this project, GIZ technical Health Staff was supporting MoHS emergency response to the disaster, from the beginning, working alongside with other health partners to assure essential health services, prevent outbreaks of disease, and increase readiness to respond to major health threat.

  • Together with the Social Mobilization Pillar of the MoHS, GIZ technical staff trained and monitored about 400 Community Health Workers in disaster areas and disaster prone communities in the Western Area on cholera prevention and on community engagement platform for collective and responsive decisions to improve hygiene and sanitation. After the training, the CHW engaged their respective communities for 15 days on cholera sensitization and were closely supervised by GIZ technical staff together with local supervisor during that period.

UNFPA

As part of UNFPA’s support during the recovery phase and to build the country’s capacity to respond to future disasters, UNFPA will conduct a four-day “Training of Trainers” on the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) for reproductive health in emergency situations. The training will take place on 31 October – 3 November at UNFPA. Thirty-five invitations have been sent to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation (MoHS), Ministry of Social Welfare Gender and Children’s Affairs (MSWGCA), WHO, Sierra Leone Midwives Association, Planned Parenthood Association of Sierra Leone (PPSL), Aberdeen Women’s Center, Marie Stopes International, Rainbo initiative and others. It is expected that through this training, Sierra Leone will have a sufficient number of national trainers to facilitate MISP trainings in the future when needed.

CARE

  • For a period of 1 month starting October 24, CARE is supporting 200 community health workers who engage in public awareness campaigns and social mobilization in 10 affected communities in Western Area Rural District and 20 affected communities in Western Area Urban District. Key message delivery in the affected communities focused on cholera prevention, malaria prevention, breastfeeding, child protection and use of Aquatabs. A total of 1,777 households and 5,025 individuals (2,134 males and 2,891 females) have been reached so far (24 – 27 October).

  • CARE conducted a training on cholera prevention and ORS preparation using locally available materials for 210 participants from the affected communities of Culvert, Juba,
    Kamayama and Kaningo (27 – 28 October).

WASH

Save the Children

  • Distributed baby kits comprising towels, washable diapers, baby soap, baby shampoo, baby clothing, nappy rash cream and talcum powder to 77 children (33 boys and 34 girls) between the age 0-3 years at Juba IDP camp.

The Red Cross

  • 22 Sierra Leone Red Cross Society WASH volunteers continued to carry out sensitization sessions in three sites of Regent, Culvert and Juba on hygiene promotion, reaching 9,234 (2,637 men; 3,712 women; and 2,855 children) with messages on hand washing, latrine cleaning, waste management, oral rehydration salt solutions and personal hygiene. Red Cross volunteers continued to manage the hand washing points at Juba camp, educating all people entering the camp on proper hand washing with soap and clean water.

  • Red Cross carried out a distribution of hygiene kits to 600 households in Culvert community where WASH volunteers also trained the beneficiaries on the use of Aquatabs.
    In addition, 200 pieces of IEC materials on WASH were handed to beneficiary households to help them use the kits effectively.

  • As part of the plan to construct boreholes in affected communities, a field visit by Red Cross and head of Wash Pillar (MoWR was carried out in Culvert to assess the feasibility of borehole construction in this community).

ChildFund

  • Celebrated Global Hand washing Day with 230 participants and 15 stakeholders at OldSkool Camp

  • ChildFund through World Hope International distributed 67,200 P&G water purifiers to 1,500 beneficiaries within 15 Communities.

CARE

  • CARE distributed a total of 1,030 67-mg Aquatabs to 72 households in the affected communities of Kamayama (22 households) and Juba (50 households). The household beneficiaries received between 10-40 Aquatabs, or an average of 14 Aquatabs per household (13 – 19 October).

  • CARE distributed a total of 810,000 liters of clean water to sixteen 10,000-liter capacity water tanks located in Kamayama (4 tanks), Kaningo (6 tanks), Pentagon (2 tanks) and Juba Barracks (1 tank) and Old School IDP Camp (3 tanks). CARE also monitored the water’s Free Chlorine Residual (13 – 27 October).