Sierra Leone - After assessing gaps in services, IOM has launched two social mobilization programmes to fight Ebola in the northern Bombali and eastern Kono districts of Sierra Leone.

The programme, funded by the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), will be implemented in   close cooperation with World Hope International (WHI) and Wellbody Alliance (WBA).

World Hope International chairs the social mobilization pillar at the District Ebola Response Centre (DERC) in Bombali district.

It supports the pillar’s continuing efforts in social mobilization through training and revamping of social and behavioral change messaging campaigns to align with current epidemiological and transmission trends.

WHI will also meet with traditional chiefdom leaders to identify potentially harmful burial practices specific to the chiefdom in order to provide safe and acceptable alternatives that remain culturally relevant.

WHI will also train and deploy a mixed male and female team of cultural leaders in each district who can join the district burial team to ensure cultural and gender sensitivity is exercised.

Wellbody Alliance, IOM’s implementing partner in Kono district, a recent hotspot area for Ebola cases, is training social mobilizer community health workers (CHWs) in five chiefdoms.

Over 200 CHWs from villages have been trained in community social mobilization, surveillance, and contact tracing. House-to-house social mobilization will begin in a phased approach this month. Once rolled out, it will be complemented by group education sessions in each community.

Dr. Bailor Barrie, co-founder of Wellbody Alliance, said: "Use of community health workers as social mobilizers is the most effective way of providing key messages in communities, especially when they do house-to-house visits."

Separately, since December 2014, IOM Sierra Leone has been supporting implementing partners Oxfam International and Action Contre la Faim to provide relief to sick people who might have Ebola, while they wait for referral, through distribution of emergency interim care packages.

The packages are pre-positioned at community-level health facilities and given out with related social and behavioral messaging by community-based teams to suspected Ebola cases and their caregivers at home. Distribution has been concentrated in the hard hit western area surrounding Freetown and neighboring Port Loko and Bombali districts.

The community-based teams also support the referral of sick people to clinical care through contacting the district-level Ebola response line and/or the nearest treatment facility.

A second mechanism is supported by a liaison officer at the DERC. As suspected cases are identified via the Ebola hotline, the liaison officer then will contact CHWs to distribute a prepositioned kit to the impacted household to stay safe while they wait for test results.

To date, training-of-trainer sessions for community health care workers on the use and promotion of the care kits have been held by IOM partners and 225 kits have been distributed in total.

The interim care packages contain oral rehydration salts, water purification tablets, soap, gloves, and chlorine granules to create a chlorine solution, buckets, and Ebola awareness pamphlets. Many of these items are equally useful for other, water-borne communicable diseases that also threaten local populations.

As the needs on the ground evolve, due to changes in the rates and geography of transmission of Ebola, the care kits project team is working on altering the distribution plan to expand to other areas of the country and also to help with Ebola preparedness.

IOM Programme Manager, Katrina Hann, explains: “We are working to see how best the care kits can get out to the people who need them the most, while considering the rapid changes in the epidemiological situation.”

For more information, please contact

Nicholas Bishop

IOM Sierra Leone

Tel: +232 76 466 942

Email: nbishop@iom.int