2500 Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone to get monthly allowance

2500 Ebola survivors, mostly women and children, have been targeted to receive monthly allowance and skills training as part of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)‘s Ebola Recovery plan.

#sierraleone Govt. joins #undp meeting with Donors in New York 2 present #Ebola Recovery plans, & new Trust Fund. pic.twitter.com/rGLo2sceVd

— Sudipto Mukerjee (@sudiptomuk) March 4, 2016

The $1,436,000 budgeted project jointly signed into action on Thursday by the UNDP and the Government of Sierra Leone will be implemented in the hardest-hit districts of Sierra Leone.

The project will provide livelihood skills and monthly stipend to beneficiaries over a fixed time period and at the end of the skills trainings they will be presented startup kits, UNDP said in a statement.

Sierra Leone has recorded 14124 reported cases of Ebola, 3956 deaths, and more than 4000 survivors who have not been able to return to their previous jobs. The country declared the end of Ebola human-to-human transmission on March 17, 2016.

Sierra Leone’s Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs, Dr. Sylvia O. Blyden said her ministry will create an Ebola survivors’ desk and will look at how to improve survivors’ welfare and livelihood.

“I believe that under the leadership of the UNDP and the Government of Sierra Leone, we’ll have so many success stories out of this project. I want to believe that more donors would be inspired to come and assist the Ebola Survivors of Sierra Leone,” she said.

UNDP Country Director, Sudipto Mukerjee, however emphasized that the success of the project will depend on how engaged the community will be.

“The larger substantive bit of the project is about building skills to actually make their livelihood much more sustainable. We want them to lead a life as normal as possible, to have the same chances as they did before Ebola,” he said.

UNDP Representatives, UNWOMEN, the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs (MSWGCA) and the Sierra Leone Association of Ebola Survivors (SLAES) provide strategic direction and oversight to the project funded by the Ebola Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF).