As you may know, Sierra Leone has one of the poorest healthcare systems in the world, with a performance ranked bottom of the 191 countries included by the World Health Organisation. One in four children die before their 5th birthday, usually due to preventable causes. Although there are many charities working in Sierra Leone at the moment, almost all are focussed on immediate aid instead of  looking to create community-led, sustainable solutions to the country's healthcare crisis.

The Welbodi Partnership is currently working with the Ministry of Health, local, and international partners in Sierra Leone to strengthen paediatric healthcare provision in an attempt to combat child mortality in a sustainable manner. This involves training of doctors and nurses in paediatric care, provision of healthcare facilities, and research to underpin and inform work carried out by the charity and the Ministry of Health. They have been instrumental in the formation of the Sierra Leone Institute of Child Health, and since it's inception have assisted the Freetown paediatric hospital (the only paediatric hospital in the country!) to obtain running water and electricity among other vital infrastructure and equipment. You can find more information about the charity at www.welbodipartnership.org.

So, to my role in all of this... Welbodi have asked me to volunteer with them for 3 months from mid-september until december. As a relatively small charity, they have very little funding, thus rely on volunteers to keep the good work going. I am now looking for donations to help cover the cost of flights and accomodation to allow me to volunteer for Welbodi for these 3 months. They often have medical students volunteering with them, but are currently in need of someone with public health training (me!). This summer they carried out some baseline research to assess the situation in the Freetown slums and in the hospital to try and gain a picture of the scale of the paediatric healthcare problem and find out why mothers weren't accessing healthcare for their children. The now need me to analyse that data and carry out some further research to inform policy decisions by the government and also to help the hospital to make changes to encourage mothers to come to the hospital. Secondly, Welbodi have been teaching medical staff at the hospital how to write grant proposals. This allows the doctors and nurses to identify where the problems are and appeal to Welbodi and the government for funding. These proposals are due in October, so I would assist with both sides of the proposal writing and selection. Finally, there are no education programmes for mothers about the value of breast feeding or how to protect their children from malnourishment, diarrhoea and malaria, so I am hoping that I will be able to help the hospital staff set up some education programmes to help mothers to protect the health of their children. 

So, there is lots of valuable work to be done that will truly make a significant difference in changing the provision of care for infants and children in Sierra Leone for many years to come. Your kind contribution will make a big difference by helping me to travel to Sierra Leone to help with this work.

If you'd like to hear more about this, listen to my BBC radio interview at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0042dy1/Matt_Jamisons_Easy_Sunday_23_08_2009/