Ebola response activist to speak at Martin Forum
While West Africa’s Ebola outbreak has been a global concern, Director of the Martin Institute Bill Smith said a sliver of good has come out of the situation.
“Ebola is not a positive story,” Smith said. “But the way the (West African) governments and expatriate community responded is a positive story.”
The Martin Institute will host Ernest Danjuma Enebi, a campaign engagement manager for Africa Responds at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Vandal Ballroom of the Bruce Pitman Center, formerly known as the Student Union Building.
Africa Responds is a nonprofit organization that helps raise funds for African organizations responding to the Ebola outbreak.
The Martin Institute partnered with several African-American organizations on campus to put on the event in celebration of Black History month, Smith said. The goal of the event is to share a positive story.
The presentation Enebi will give will cover the response various stakeholders had to the Ebola outbreak, Smith said.
“People should come see what is possible when Africans come together,” Smith said. “We wanted to tell that story.”
According to Smith, an expatriate is someone who no longer lives in his or her country of origin. The West African expatriate community in the U.S. mobilized in an effective way to give aid to specific villages and regions, Smith said. He said this was because the expatriates have better connections to their home villages and regions than larger organizations like the American Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders. It was a way to get funds directly to the people who need them, he said.
“They can motivate giving and target the help,” Smith said.
Many expatriates do not consider themselves to be from the region of West Africa, Smith said. They consider themselves to be from Sierra Leone, Liberia or whichever country they came from. However, the Ebola outbreak did not confine itself within national borders, Smith said. So expatriates responded to help the whole region, and not just their country of origin. Smith said they put their nationalities aside to help everyone in the region.
“In part because the nature of Ebola, (it) crossed those borders as well,” he said.
Africa Responds has raised just under $100,000 to help those who are affected by the Ebola outbreak, Smith said.
The West African governments also played a positive role in combating Ebola, Smith said. These nations regularly communicate with one another and have plans in place to react when a crisis, such as Ebola, occurs.
“They are ready to work to prevent it from becoming worse that it was,” Smith said.
Right after the outbreak, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent advisers to the region to aid the governments, not to take control of the situation, Smith said.
The response to the Ebola outbreak was an international effort that affected everyone, Smith said.
“Ebola didn’t happen on the other side of the planet,” Smith said.
Graham Perednia can be reached at [email protected]