News

Ebola has increasingly been the focal point of many news stories over the past weeks as it still continues to spread. The World Health Organisation published on 3rd October that the death rate was nearly 3500 people. It is still rising rapidly with Save the Children reporting a current rate of 5 new cases an hour in Sierra Leone alone.

Mission Direct have been monitoring the Ebola situation for many months. Due to the current crisis, we have taken the decision to postpone our spring teams and hope to return with a team at Easter 2015. We will continue to update on any changes to this decision.

We are aware that many of our partners in Sierra Leone have been hit by the Ebola Virus and some are struggling to continue with their work. Waterloo Hospital has already been quarantined for a month and unfortunately two nurses lost their lives to the virus.

We are determined to support our partners through this time and have put together a plan to support them over the next 6 months. To enable us to do this, we are looking at raising a further £2000. This provides basic support to our partners which can be as simple as rice for them to eat or a bike to enable them to travel to their patients. Listed below are some of the ways that you can help.

• £25 buys a bag of rice and some vegetables to support many of our partners. We are looking to provide 80 bags of rice over the next 6 months to feed 460 people.
• £30 pays for motorbike hire which enables the Epileptic Association of Sierra Leone to provide aid to their patients.
• £300 pays the salaries of the staff Waterloo Hospital for one month. The hospital is not receiving any patients currently and are unable to pay the wages for the staff.

If you are able to help us in continuing to support our partners over the next 6 months, please send any donations to the Mission Direct office with a note for where you would like to be sent, or contact Steve Loryman (steve.loryman@missiondirect.org) for more information. Please remember to gift aid where possible.

The people of Sierra Leone need our help to keep going during this difficult time so please continue to pray for them and others that are suffering from this virus in Western Africa. They will also need help when this has passed, so if you would like to join us on a team for next autumn, please register your interest with Justin Wood (justin.wood@missiondirect.org). We are hoping to run additional trips at the end of the year to make sure we are continually supporting and meeting the needs of our partners.