In just over a week eleven people will fly to Freetown to implement Community Healthcare Training for leaders and influencers in the Wellington and Kissy areas. It is a large and varied team that has come together. I am the only one that has been to Sierra Leone before, although some are familiar with other parts of Africa. We shall tackle the issues that the community see as their most pressing concerns and will help the leaders to formulate plans to bring about change in their communities. The modular programme that we are following has been successful in many parts of the world. Nelson Mandela specifically asked for it to be taken to his home village in South Africa.
Linden Boothby from the charity Links International in Sussex is guiding us through whatever may be seen as the initial problems to tackle.
Linden Boothby
We are very grateful and excited to have her with us, and an exceptional team has come together to learn from her. We have three medical doctors, a psychiatrist, G.P. and a paediatrician. They will double, I understand, the number of qualified psychiatrists and paediatricians in Sierra Leone during the week they are there. There are two healthcare students, not yet out of their teens - OK let's come clean on this, one is my daughter, Grace, and one my nephew, Samuel. He's the one without any hair - at least he will have been shorn by the time we set off!
We also have a nurse with us, and four others, including me, who are here to learn. Actually we all will be learning. That is what makes it all so exciting - we don't know what the outcome will be. We don't know what the questions will be, or who will turn up. However we believe that we shall see the will of God unfold and that he has some encouraging surprises for us. Some team members will commit to going back four or five times until the work is well-established.
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