This is exciting for us because it will be our first full-term field service with Mercy Ships. We will be in Togo in July, then travel to Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone has a long and tragic history, and an incredibly complex and interesting culture. You can read a little bit about it here: http://www.everyculture.com/Sa-Th/Sierra-Leone.html. We look forward to serving the people of Sierra Leone, and will be very thankful for your thoughts and prayers for the health and well-being of the people.
An excerpt from the link above:
M EDICINE AND H EALTH C ARE
The United Nations estimates that Sierra Leone has the highest death rate in the world, and the second highest infant morality rate (195 out of every 1,000 infants die within a year of birth). Life expectancy at birth in 1995 was only 34.1 years, down significantly from previously improving figures.Even factoring in war-related violence, malaria is still the number one health threat. Schistosomiasis, bloody diarrhea, tetanus, measles, and polio are also endemic in some areas. Access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation, especially in the rural countryside, is limited.
Medical facilities are extremely strained and are continuing to decline, especially since the 1991 conflict began. Yet even before this, the centrally organized national health service reached only an estimated 35 percent of the population, with less than 1 percent of annual government expenditures being allocated to health care. There are also an array of widely used indigenous practitioners, including midwives, broken-bone specialists, herbalists, society leaders, and Muslim-based ritual specialists.
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Mercy Ships goes to Freetown, Sierra Leone to help break the cycle of poverty in this country and provide some hope for those who are forgotten and outcast.
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