Ola During Children’s Hospital Goes Online - Thank You to LimeLine, IMATT, and friends!

Thanks to LimeLine, one of Sierra Leone's leading internet service providers, the Ola During Children’s Hospital and neighbouring Princess Christian Maternity Hospital now have network connections and free internet service for the next year. This connectivity will help improve the service the hospitals can provide, through online opportunities for staff training and medical research. We are also exploring possibilities for e-medicine and remote consultation by paediatric specialists outside of Sierra Leone.

This generous donation from LimeLine quite literally connects the hospital to the rest of the world! Thank you!

Huge thanks are also owed to other people who donated time, money, and expertise to get the hospitals online.

Thank you to our friends at the International Military Advisory and Training Team (IMATT) in Freetown, who donated materials as well as their expertise to help install the network. We really appreciate the time and resources they have given us.

Finally, a massive thank you to Meghan and Carol Roecklein, who deserve credit both for spearheading this effort and for their time, energy and support along the way. This would never have happened without you!

Launch of the Sierra Leone Institute of Child Health

Many of you as regular supporters will know we have spent the last 12 months establishing the Sierra Leone Institute of Child Health (SLICH) to improve paediatric care in Sierra Leone.

June marked the official launch of SLICH. Already it has begun to work towards its aims: bringing the right people together, identifying where the need is greatest, and making sure lasting changes happen.

So far we have:

A new proposal process in place

SLICH looks to local people and the staff of the Ola During Children’s Hospital (ODCH) to acquire the best understanding of what the hospital and its young patients need. Staff and other stakeholders are encouraged to submit short proposals for funding and support. The SLICH board – which includes representatives from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, ODCH, and the Welbodi Partnership – then reviews these proposals at quarterly meetings. Funds for approved projects or supplies are released to ODCH, which must then account for those funds at the next SLICH meeting.

We believe that local planning and implementation are fundamental to our aim to improve paediatric care, and we're very excited about the SLICH funding process as a way to empower the ODCH staff and managers to propose and deliver improvements to their hospital.


Acted upon the following proposals

The first SLICH board meeting took place in June. The approved proposals represented a total budget of Le 91,419,000 (approx $23,000). These are now underway and include:

• Provision of library facilities
• Purchase of a standby generator and construction of a generator house
• Plumbing and electrical repairs
• Accommodation for visiting doctors


Call for new proposals

The second SLICH board meeting was held on 2nd October, and the ODCH staff and managers came up with a fresh round of exciting and important proposals to improve the quality of care and training at ODCH.

Stay tuned for details on these proposals and the SLICH board’s funding decisions for the final quarter of 2009.

A Note from Us

Dear friends and supporters,

You may have wondered why you haven't heard from us in some time. Our apologies for the long silence -- we've been in a period of transition and have also been extremely busy here on the ground with lots of exciting initiatives.

Over the next week we'll be posting a number of long-overdo updates to this blog, which we'll then pull together into a newsletter. We hope you'll enjoy these updates and thanks as always for your support!

Sincerely,
The Welbodi Partnership

Cyclist “Takes on Africa”

Would you cycle 20,000 km to raise money for children half a world away?

Helen Lloyd would.

In just a week, Helen departs from the UK on a two-year cycling trip from the tip to toe of Africa, which will end in Cape Town in 2011.  The trip is entirely self-funded and all money raised goes directly to the Welbodi Partnership.

We can’t thank Helen enough, and we wish her great luck and wonderful adventures along the way!

To learn more about her trip, visit the Take On Africa website. To donate and support the Welbodi Partnership, visit her JustGiving site. Consider pledging just $0.01 per km she rides, and donate $200 to help save the lives of children at the Ola During Children’s Hospital.

Mothers matter

Sierra Leone’s First Lady Sia Nyama Koroma – a former nurse – has taken up the cause of reducing maternal mortality. Today, women in Sierra Leone have a lifetime risk of dying in childbirth of 1 in 8. Even that devastating statistic understates the real tragedy, however, because far too often when a mother dies, her newborn child follows soon thereafter. And we don’t need to point out what this means for the other children she leaves behind.

Here is First Lady Koroma writing recently in the Huffington Post, arguing that “It’s Time to Make Mothers a Priority.”

Gifts from the US Embassy

The American Embassy in Freetown has become one of the newest supporters of the Welbodi Partnership and the Ola During Children’s Hospital.

Here are Embassy staff Lisa Baker and Laura Kustaborder, with ODCH matron Ruby Williams. They came to visit the hospital in April, to hand over the proceeds from a charity Mardi Gras ball the Embassy co-hosted in March to benefit the Welbodi Partnership and other charities.  The ball raised more than six million Leones – about $2,000 – and half of this went to the Ola During Children’s Hospital.

Staff of the hospital were grateful for the Embassy’s support. ODCH Specialist-in-Charge Dr. MAS Jalloh (right, with Laura) thanked the Embassy representatives and asked them to remember the hospital in the future. He also assured them that any donations would be well-used.

Since then, the Embassy has begun helping in ways big and small. Ambassador June Carter Perry met with the Welbodi Partnership coordinators to find out more about the organization’s work.  Lisa has agreed to help sell Sweet Salone cookbooks, the proceeds from which benefit the Welbodi Partnership, around the Embassy offices. And Laura, the Embassy’s health practitioner, arranged for a donation of new and used medical equipment to ODCH and the neighboring maternity hospital.

This equipment included a portable suction machine, boxes of oxygen masks and nasal cannulas, crutches, and other assorted supplies (see photo, right). She is also working to organize a blood drive for Embassy personnel to benefit the government’s blood services, which struggle with a constant shortage of blood.

We thank the Embassy staff for their support and look forward to a long partnership.

Welbodi Partnership in New York!

Will you be in New York on May 26, 2009? If so, please join us for an exciting event at the beautiful Fourth Universalist Society of New York. Nobel Prize-winning economist Dr. Joseph Stiglitz and Bloomberg News Editor-at-Large Mr. Robert Friedman take the stage, with a display of photographs by Czech photographer David Lacina for sale. You can check out details below, or find our event on Facebook. RSVP to welbodinyc@gmail.com or by phone at (917) 945-7879. Proceeds benefit the Welbodi Partnership and our work to support paediatric healthcare in Sierra Leone.

Many thanks to Welbodi Partnership supporters Hien Dao and Jimena Zuniga for organizing this event!

Invites you to an evening with

Dr. Joseph Stiglitz

Nobel Laureate and Columbia University Professor of Economics

Discussing "THE $12 TRILLION TRAP: The Economic Crisis, the Obama Administration's Response and Its Global Impact"

Moderated by Bloomberg News Editor-at-Large Mr. Robert Friedman
With an exhibition of photographs of Sierra Leone by Czech photographer David Lacina

May 26th 2009, 7-9 PM
Fourth Universalist Society of New York
160 Central Park West at 76th Street

Please RSVP at welbodinyc@gmail.com or by phone at (917) 945-7879

A minimum donation of $25 is requested. Exhibition photographs will be available for sale at $100. All cash donations and half of sale
proceeds will go towards supporting the Welbodi Partnership, a charity dedicated to improving the provision of pediatric care in Sierra Leone. The event is made possible through the kind support
of Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt, the Fourth Universalist Society of New York, Mrs. Anya Stiglitz, Mr. Robert Friedman and Mr. David
Lacina.


US donors can make tax-deductible donations to the Welbodi Partnership through FJC – A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds

By check: Please make checks payable to FJC and write “Welbodi Partnership” in the memo line of the check. Checks are accepted at our May 26 event or can be mailed directly to: FJC, 520 Eighth Ave., 20th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

By credit card: Please visit our website http://www.welbodipartnership.org/ to make a donation online.

By cash: Cash donations will be accepted at our May 26 event.