Ambassador trains champions at Congo Water
Faith Ambassador, Hawanatu Koroma told participants in his spearhead day-long workshop, held at No 8c Lower Congo Water, Down Garden, that faith champions should be volunteers who would actualize the faith dream of British former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, which is to rid various communities in Sierra Leone of malaria.
He spoke on Saturday, February 11, to a total of twenty participants who learnt that malaria is a killer disease in the world and that Sierra Leone has had a great number of death tolls caused by malaria in the West African region with many statistics being children below the age of five.
She said the faith champions are obliged to teach and communicate well the five key messages which are: a family sleeps under a treated mosquito bed-net, report early signs and symptoms of malaria to the medics, strict the patient to Doctor’s prescribed doses, clean the various environments and take pregnant women to the hospital for Intermittent Preventive Treatment (IPT) for malaria.
Faith Ambassador Turay, one of the facilitators said, the community participants are being trained to become Malaria Faith Champions (MFCs) and part of their work includes doing the spadework in disseminating the five key messages across the different localities and people to have a trend down in the level of malaria prevalence in the country.
He said the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (TBFF) coined ‘faith’ with the fact that mosquitoes have got no limit target in transmitting the malaria parasite, adding that faith ambassadors are those who would work in faith without asking for payment.
Hawanatu Koroma buttressed the fact that mosquitoes have known no religion, race, tribe or region of persons to afflict the malaria disease on. She said female anopheles mosquitoes’ bite is the only means by which the plasmodium parasite is transferred into the human body’s immune system that causes malaria”.
She emphasized the role of communication and said the Malaria Faith Champions should endear in their new found roles to deliver the five key messages in the right manner and ways that would enhance a people’s clear understanding. She said the MFCs should always apply good ethics and approach in their efforts to pass on the key messages.
Exchange of perspectives on the prevention and control of malaria was done by members of the Muslims and Christian faiths among the participants.
Facilitator Turay lectured on: the house to house advocacy explain approaches, roles of the various households, monitoring and data collection.
He said the MFCs are required to do routine visits to the homes they first visited on two occasions within an interval of four weeks to tally responses as to whether the five key messages are being understood well.
Questions and answers and skit performances climaxed the workshop.
By Abu Bakarr Sulaiman Tarawally
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