Today from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Bank of America published, "The secret to social change," which presents evidence that investing philanthropic dollars in organizations that benefit women and girls yields the greatest impact. They cite numerous studies that reflect both the greater relative impact of giving to groups that are disproportionately disadvantaged, as well as evidence that women are more likely to reinvest money gained through greater employment or education into activities that sustain and nurture families.
This study made me think of my recent mission in Sierra Leone to work on beneficiary communication with Ebola-impacted communities. During my mission, I was visiting with Winnie Romeril, a WHO spokesperson and overheard her discussion with an anthropologist preparing for a BBC interview. The topic was female genital mutilation, a practice that is still widespread in Sierra Leone. On its own, the practice has numerous negative effects on the lives of girls - culturally presenting them as marriageable even before puberty, inflicting painful and dangerous cutting in often non-sanitary conditions and often damaging their ability to conceive and bear children. Combining this with the presence of Ebola, a viral disease that is transmitted through touching bodily fluids, expands the deleterious impact. In the past few months a group of soweis, women who perform female genital mutilation ceremonies sequentially during the months of December and January, contracted Ebola and died. Huffington Post reported last week that the government of Sierra Leone has recently instituted a temporary ban on the practice.
Further, reports in August 2014 reflected that women formed a disproportionate percentage of Ebola deaths, reaching up to 75 per cent in Liberia and from 55 to 60 per cent in Sierra Leone and Guinea. This is due to traditional cultural practices in which women often pay a primary role. Ebola is contagious through bodily fluids - blood, vomit, faeces, semen, saliva - of a person who exhibits symptoms of the disease. In West African culture, women breastfeed and change children, care for the sick, and wash and prepare dead bodies prior to burial. Dead bodies carry the highest viral load for Ebola victims and are the most contagious.
I also had the pleasure of working in a team of international emergency management professionals in which the team leader was a Norwegian woman, the chief doctor at the Ebola triage point was a Canadian woman, and the construction team lead for the Kono Ebola Treatment Centre was a Spanish woman.
In December, I was with representatives of the Kono branch of the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society, planning a broadcast show with the local radio station. One of the first elements of our discussion was about the timing for our first show. For us, it was important that we held the show at a time when women would be able to listen. We chose Sunday evening between eight and nine, a quiet time in most Kono district households, after church and meals, after sunset, but before adults went to bed. Speaking in the local dialect, the team, which included a member of the safe and dignified burial team as well as a representative of the ministry of health, talked about how Ebola is spread in a show entitled "How to protect your home".
My question today is "How to protect your women". How can we build on the knowledge that investment in programmes that benefit women have a greater impact? How do we leverage the data that tells us more women are infected and killed? How do we work respectfully with the communities to modify or change the cultural practices that are allowing the disease to spread and threatening their way of life?
I don't have the answers. But the threads are beginning to weave a pattern. What are your thoughts? Do you know of programmes that are already effective? Let's find this together and leverage the power of the Davos contingent and the many dedicated professionals in the field to find a solution and defeat Ebola this year.
This study made me think of my recent mission in Sierra Leone to work on beneficiary communication with Ebola-impacted communities. During my mission, I was visiting with Winnie Romeril, a WHO spokesperson and overheard her discussion with an anthropologist preparing for a BBC interview. The topic was female genital mutilation, a practice that is still widespread in Sierra Leone. On its own, the practice has numerous negative effects on the lives of girls - culturally presenting them as marriageable even before puberty, inflicting painful and dangerous cutting in often non-sanitary conditions and often damaging their ability to conceive and bear children. Combining this with the presence of Ebola, a viral disease that is transmitted through touching bodily fluids, expands the deleterious impact. In the past few months a group of soweis, women who perform female genital mutilation ceremonies sequentially during the months of December and January, contracted Ebola and died. Huffington Post reported last week that the government of Sierra Leone has recently instituted a temporary ban on the practice.
Further, reports in August 2014 reflected that women formed a disproportionate percentage of Ebola deaths, reaching up to 75 per cent in Liberia and from 55 to 60 per cent in Sierra Leone and Guinea. This is due to traditional cultural practices in which women often pay a primary role. Ebola is contagious through bodily fluids - blood, vomit, faeces, semen, saliva - of a person who exhibits symptoms of the disease. In West African culture, women breastfeed and change children, care for the sick, and wash and prepare dead bodies prior to burial. Dead bodies carry the highest viral load for Ebola victims and are the most contagious.
I also had the pleasure of working in a team of international emergency management professionals in which the team leader was a Norwegian woman, the chief doctor at the Ebola triage point was a Canadian woman, and the construction team lead for the Kono Ebola Treatment Centre was a Spanish woman.
In December, I was with representatives of the Kono branch of the Sierra Leone Red Cross Society, planning a broadcast show with the local radio station. One of the first elements of our discussion was about the timing for our first show. For us, it was important that we held the show at a time when women would be able to listen. We chose Sunday evening between eight and nine, a quiet time in most Kono district households, after church and meals, after sunset, but before adults went to bed. Speaking in the local dialect, the team, which included a member of the safe and dignified burial team as well as a representative of the ministry of health, talked about how Ebola is spread in a show entitled "How to protect your home".
My question today is "How to protect your women". How can we build on the knowledge that investment in programmes that benefit women have a greater impact? How do we leverage the data that tells us more women are infected and killed? How do we work respectfully with the communities to modify or change the cultural practices that are allowing the disease to spread and threatening their way of life?
I don't have the answers. But the threads are beginning to weave a pattern. What are your thoughts? Do you know of programmes that are already effective? Let's find this together and leverage the power of the Davos contingent and the many dedicated professionals in the field to find a solution and defeat Ebola this year.
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