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Despite challenges posed by the lack of resources and preparedness to deal with the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, churches in the country have initiated programmes to build awareness around the disease, prevention and assistance for Ebola victims.

Ebun James-DeKam, general secretary of the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone (CCSL), reports that with support from the ACT Alliance, an intensive campaign has been launched by the churches to sensitize communities in responding to the Ebola crisis.

Sierra Leone is one of the countries in West Africa where around forty percent of the cases of Ebola were reported. The current Ebola outbreak has become the deadliest occurrence of the disease since its discovery in 1976. Over one thousand people have died, according to media reports.

DeKam shares in an article that the CCSL is a member of the National Ebola Task force through which churches have the opportunity to influence the quantity, tone and impact of communications related to Ebola. “We receive almost daily Ebola updates on the progression of the disease, and these are disseminated to our local and international partners,” she said.

“Personally, I am emotionally affected,” DeKam said.

“As a mother, I think about the number of children who would have lost their parents and because of that, possibly their link to good education at home and at school,” she added.

DeKam explains that, with other religious bodies including Catholic mission, Pentecostal fellowship and different Muslim bodies, the CCSL is addressing the Ebola crisis with a “united perspective”.

Through Religious Leaders Task Force on Ebola (RLTFE), anti-Ebola training sessions have been conducted in local communities. Heads of the churches and mosques have spoken to their congregations not only from the pulpit but on radio and television. Buckets of chlorinated water are now found at the entrances of many churches and mosques, said DeKam.

Dr Hans Spitzeck from Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World), a partner of the CCSL,  said that the “ecumenical community is learning about the Ebola situation and churches’ response through Ebun James-DeKam, general secretary of the CCSL.” Her voice, he said, shows that the “churches are not helpless or disappointed by God, but confident, informed and active”.

In a recent message from the World Council of Churches (WCC), its associate and acting general secretary Dr Isabel Apawo Phiri expressed deep concern over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

“What affects one, affects us all”, she said, calling on the churches “to seek out appropriate ways of supporting our affected brothers and sisters, particularly through our Christian health services in the affected countries, who are over-stretched and lacking many of the basic necessities and resources to deal effectively and compassionately with this crisis.”

Read article from general secretary of the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone

WCC expresses deep and shared concern at Ebola outbreak in West Africa (WCC news release of 5 August)

ACT Alliance response to Ebola in Liberia

Website of Bread for the World

WCC member churches in Sierra Leone