Thondwe, Malawi … Wilson Tembo, Warehouse Officer for the Malawi Project recently returned from a 3,700-mile (9,247.1 km) trip across Africa to Freetown, Sierra Leone. The trip was sponsored by World Emergency Relief, and Kinder Kanker Genezing (KKG) it’s sister organization in Germany. Both organizations are major contributors to Malawi Project program sites. The trip focused on evaluation, idea sharing, and recording procedures. During his time in West Africa Tembo was able to share his organizational procedures and skills, as well as gaining insight to how aid programs are being accomplished in Sierra Leone. His reports included the success of the programs in spite of slow development in the country as a result of the civil war that lasted until 2002, and the recent outbreak of deadly Ebola.
Country Comparison
Sierra Leone is on the western side of the continent on the Atlantic Coast while Malawi is on the southeast side of the world’s second largest continent. It has a population of 6.3-million compared to Malawi’s 18.5 million. While the two countries offer some very different national statistics they also have some that are very similar. Both countries have very young populations, Sierra Leone with its under 24 population at 60%, and Malawi at 67%. Both countries have large populations who survive from subsistence farming, Sierra Leone at around 50% and Malawi at nearly 85%. Both have very high percentages of population below the poverty line, Sierra Leone is 70.2% and Malawi 52.4%. The life expectancy in both countries are close to the same, Sierra Leone stands at 58.2 and Malawi at 61.2. And finally, both suffer from severe shortages of health care assets. Sierra Leone has .02 doctors for every 1000 people and Malawi comes in with the same percentage. Sierra Leone has .4/1000 hospital beds and Malawi .02/1000.
Ebola in West Africa
While Malawi has remained far away from the Ebola outbreaks in other parts of Africa (The first cases of Ebola were said to originate in Zaire in 1976, with the most recent outbreak spreading through parts of West Africa from 2014 and 2016. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone reported 28,616 confirmed, probable and suspected cases, as well as 11,310 deaths. The Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) related to Ebola in West Africa was lifted on 29 March 2016.)
Six months after the all clear was given Tembo arrived in Freetown to conduct the successful valuation and program sharing sessions with the Director and staff of Mercy and Hope International.