OLPCorps TulaneSPHTM SierraLeone
Proposal
The US-based team would include two masters of public health (MPH) students and a recent MPH graduate from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and a school psychology PhD student from the University at Buffalo. With a strong interest in educational development and background and experience in international public health, the team is well balanced. The MPH team members also have experience in Kenema, connections with local organizations and resources, and university support.
Our Sierra Leone partner organization is Defense for Children International—Sierra Leone (http://www.dci-is.org/), with a subsection in Kenema. DCI-SL works to promote children’s rights through advocacy, empowerment and education. Other organizations based in Kenema, including Conciliation Resources, Ben Hirsh, and local schools, will be incorporated into the program to assist with outreach and targeting the program to vulnerable children.
As part of a previous project, the MPH students interviewed DCI-SL, learning of gaps and recommendations to improve health and human rights in Kenema. In addition to providing advocacy and financial support to children in the justice system, DCI-SL, Kenema, implemented a computer skills training program with the help of a local women’s organization. However, with limited funding and resources, they can not currently expand the program to include younger children. Many children visit the DCI-SL offices in Kenema each day (approximately 50-60), and DCI-SL noted the need for a health education program in addition to enhancing the educational system. Children in Kenema are often limited to going summer school due to a lack of funds and the schools are overcrowded and underfunded. With a need to learn technological skills, improve health, and promote education, this program to provide and introduce Kenema’s vulnerable children to OLPC computers would match the organization’s and children’s needs. Children have time, energy, and innate ability to learn how to use computers in innovative and creative ways. Through this program, we will tap into the intrinsic desire children have to learn, giving them a new frontier in which to do so.
Our project would include self-selected children, with special outreach to vulnerable children. Our aim would be to target children with whom DCI-SL is working, building on the relationships and connections already established. Furthering our goal to target vulnerable children, we would then reach out to high-risk families that are involved in other local organizations. These organizations would possibly including Ben Hirsh, a local organization that works with street children, or Conciliation Resources, an international organization that promotes community peace building with a special focus on children and youth.
Participants would be self-selected, focusing on children age six to twelve. However, older children and family members are welcome to participate in the health education component. Once the children are equipped with laptops, we would set aside two weeks to training them on the laptops’ functionality. Six to eight year olds would be taught in the morning and nine to twelve year olds in the afternoon. Each child will be encouraged to invite a family member to accompany him/her during the course. The curriculum will focus on engaging the students in activities that help them to learn the power of the laptops firsthand. After the children are trained, we will ask them to come up with a relevant health issue that they will then research and present upon. We will work with them for a few days so that they can brainstorm topic ideas, create research questions, and identify learning objectives. Some ideas include: mapping the distance between clean water sources in their neighborhood, learning how to protect against Lassa Fever, or investigating the nutritional composition of their diet. Whatever they choose, we will ask that they work with a relative on their project and present their findings to the other participants through a multimedia (song, pictures, movies, etc.) presentation using their XO laptops.
By working with a family member, we hope to encourage sharing and collaboration. We found a desperate need for adults to have computer and typing skills. A child, gifted with time, patience, and curiosity, could be a catalyst, inspiring and empowering their whole family.
Fortunately, we can guarantee support for the continuation of the project. Each summer, roughly a dozen Tulane public health students travel to Kenema in order to work on community projects and would certainly be eager to participate in this. In addition, we would work to involve technology students from Kenema’s Eastern Polytechnic Institute with the hope that they may be interested in contributing to the program, perhaps as mentors for the children.
Budget
Tulane SPHTM Sierra Leone Program
| Item | Cost per person | Number of people | Total cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plane tickets | USA to Rwanda to Sierra Leone roundtrip = $2,587%
USA to Sierra Leone roundtrip = $1,571^ |
2
2 |
$5,174
$3,142 |
| Visas | $131 per US citizen | 4 | $524 |
| Vaccinations | $100 (yellow fever - MPH members already have vaccination) | 1 | $100 |
| Malaria medications | $40 per person | 4 | $160 |
| Food and accommodations | Room = $4/night (2 people/room at Pastoral Centre, Kenema)
Food = $4/day |
4
4 |
$560
$1120 |
| In-country transportation | Transportation in Kenema = $50/person= | 4 | $200 |
| School and program supplies | $10 per student | 100 | $1,000 |
| Stipend for local technology support | $250 for 9 weeks of support | 1 | $250 |
| Total | $10,980+ |
% vayama.com (searched 27 March 2009) JFK (5 June) – KGL (6 June) KGL (18 June) – FNA (19 June) FNA (25 Aug) – JFK (26 Aug)
^ vayama.com (searched 27 March 2009) JFK (18 June) – FNA (19 June) FNA (25 Aug) – JFK (26 Aug)
= Transportation for team members and computers from the airport in Lungi to Kenema provided by Tulane Lassa Fever Program, based in Kenema.
+ Due to the high cost of international transportation, the team will work to raise the additional expenses through local networks, school funding, and other available resources.
The United States Team
Emily Cercone is a second year masters of public health student, focusing on international health and development. She worked last summer in Kenema, Sierra Leone, as a team member of the Doctors for Global Health (DGH) Practicum Working Group. The Working Group identified international, national and local NGOs working in Kenema District as well as healthcare leaders, including the district medical officer, nurses in leadership positions and doctors in the government hospital. Emily's interests include learning French, decorating Ukrainian eggs, and listening to Coldplay. She hails from Buffalo, New York, USA.
Katie McCarthy is a recent graduate of the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, where she focused on international public health. She was also a member of the DGH Practicum Working Group in Kenema last summer. Currently, she is working as a project assistant organizing patient recruitment into a study to improve doctor patient communication about cancer prevention in community-based health clinics in New Orleans. She hails from Audubon, Pennsylvania, USA.
Katie Robinette is also a second years masters of public health student, focusing on international health and development and a former DGH Practicum Working Group member. She is a strong supporter of women's rights and wants to work to improve women's health. This March, she was the coordinator for the Tulane SPHTM/SOM Vagina Monologues, proceeds of which support Women with a Vision, a local NGO. She hails from Yucaipa, Califonia, USA.
Brian Gangloff is a second year PhD student in school counceling at the University at Buffalo. He has a strong interest in educational development of underprivileged children. He hails from Buffalo, New York, USA.
Our Local Partner
Defence for Children International - Sierra Leone (http://www.dci-is.org/)
Mission
Defence for Children International is dedicated to ensuring on-going, practical, systematic and concerted international action directed towards promoting and protecting the rights of the child, as articulated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), its optional protocols, and all the other human rights instruments.
Vision
Children should enjoy and exercise their rights in a just and responsible society.
News
DCI-Sierra Leone Hosts First National Conference on Juvenile Justice in Freetown. With the adoption of the new Child Rights Act 2007, Sierra Leone joins the ranks of countries with strong legislation to promote and protect the rights of children in the justice system. With this framework in place, DCI-Sierra Leone held a conference to explore and reflect on the strategies for ensuring that laws and policies translate into reality for children in Sierra Leone.
The conference was entitled “National Conference on Juvenile Justice: A Practical Approach” and took place from March 19-20, 2009 in Freetown (http://www.dci-is.org/db/nl/up_files/DCI-SL_conference.pdf).
Background of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is a country of 6.2 million people located on the West African coast. Despite its tropical climate, beautiful beaches which might fuel a tourist economy, and abundance of natural resources (diamonds, titanium ore, bauxite, iron ore, gold, and chromite), Sierra Leone ranks last in the world on the 2008 United Nations Human Development Index, with a life expectancy of 41 years and literacy rate of 35%. Following independence from Great Britain in 1961, years of ineffectual and sometimes corrupt government, compounded by foreign influences, eventually culminated in civil war in 1991. The war resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, displacement of more than 2 million people, and destruction of much of the country’s infrastructure before finally ending, with the intervention of UN Peacekeepers, in 2002. Democracy in Sierra Leone is now slowly being reestablished, with peaceful elections in 2007, and the infrastructure being rebuilt.
Since 2004, Tulane University has maintained a research and training project in the town of Kenema, Sierra Leone, the third largest city in the country (population ~130,000), in collaboration with the Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation, the World Health Organization, and other partners. The Tulane program is based on the grounds of KGH, a 350-bed reference center for the southeastern region of the country where a vast array of tropical diseases is seen daily. The historical focus of the program has been research on Lassa fever, a major public health problem in the region, although smaller projects on malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses have also been conducted. In conjunction with the research, Tulane maintains an active training program in Sierra Leone with 20-30 trainees per year at stages ranging from undergraduate to post-doctoral students engaged in a variety of different research and public health projects. Students are often paired with Sierra Leonean counterparts engaged in similar disciplines and projects. Although the research and training activities led by Tulane have the potential for significant long-term improvement in the duration and quality of life in Sierra Leone, such projects have a more limited impact on the everyday challenges to health and human rights of the country. Simply put, such a real-time approach is not the direct mandate of research and training projects or the academic centers that typically implement them. Nevertheless, the Tulane project in Sierra Leone and steady stream of eager and skilled trainees and collaborators who are associated with it provide a solid base onto which a project providing more direct services could be added. DGH, which already has links to Tulane and has previously engaged in many partnerships with academia, would seem to be an ideal partner for such an endeavor.