YouSaid · the spoken record

Fallah

lines on the record
8
first
2015-08-13
most recent
2015-08-13
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

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  1. “We are developing the next generation of public-health practitioners, building that capacity and importing it in the context of the community, to every member, so as to ensure recovery, empowerment and the leadership that has protected us and will protect us from future outbreaks. I wish to thank you, Madam President, the Ambassador of the United States and Mr. Nabarro for giving me this opportunity to make the voices of the communities heard. Community-based initiatives assume that indeed we will work with communities and give them the support and the tools they need so that we human beings are able to overcome whatever threats come our way.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source

  2. “An important lesson we will learn is that we must build relationships and trust within the communities so that during the low points they can support us, or carry out testing where data might be needed. It is based on trust. It is based on relationship. It is based on the fact that we are responsive to their needs and must give them the leadership. I cannot overemphasize the need to build public-health capacities, so that our hospitals do not become graveyards but places that will prevent the next Ebola outbreak by instituting measures that enhance diagnostic capacity.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source

  3. “Working together with the response team, within 23 days, we were able to work down and contain the outbreak. It was a time of joy. The community took the leadership role and we supported them. There is an important lesson to learn for the future. Doctor Nabarro said it so well, as did Dr. Chan. An important lesson to learn is the power of the community to survive, to overcome challenges. In fact, all of us who seek to avert future challenges that threaten us as humankind must give them the power. We must recognize the structure of the communities. We must recognize the leadership, and we must support them. If we support them through routine health services, they will be able to protect us when crises come tomorrow. That is an important lesson that we must learn.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source

  4. “But the story that we have to tell is the story of the community members, the old people, the young people, the teachers who stood with us in the communities. Where are we today? This is based on a story about our recent outbreak, in Margibi County, Liberia. On 29 June we received information about a new Ebola case. We moved into Margibi County. In 48 hours we mobilized the community. We formed an Ebola council led by community members. They were able to track all of our contacts, wherever they went. Many of them had no relationship with Ebola, but they understand it involved human beings. We went to the Ebola transit unit and we took photographs of the survivors of their family as they were recovering and we brought that back to the community.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source

  5. “Wherever we went, we would listen to the communities. We recognized the leaders and we gave them the ownership and they led us. We decided to hunt Ebola one community at a time. Initially we were on the defensive. But with the involvement of the community, we then got on the offensive to begin to strike at Ebola one community after another. We let them lead us. That led to the birth of the Community Based Initiative. We felt that we were being led by the community and we followed the community, with banners from other international donors, like the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, media shows and the United Nations. We finally arrived at the long-awaited zero cases.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source

  6. “How did that sad story then became an experiment and a story today? We realized that, in order to win the fight against Ebola, we had to involve the community and give them ownership. We therefore approached the community to let them know that it was our fear for survival. It was their threat. They knew the community better than us and we wanted them to lead us. They came together and they joined us in the fight against the threat. They helped us to find all of the missing contacts. The very holding centre that they had looted became the holding centre that they supported. They moved the sick to the holding centre; they supported us. Within two weeks we saw a dramatic change, such that the Minister of Health asked us to replicate the experiment in our communities where there were there were outbreaks.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source

  7. “They saw that their friends and neighbours were dying slowly and that nothing could be done because our system was inadequate. There were instances where we took people to the Ebola treatment unit but we had to wait for others to die and remove their bodies, before we moved in new patients. In August 2014, Ebola struck West Point. West Point is a slum where 70,000 people live in 5,000 houses deprived of sanitation, with one clinic and one little school. This was a slum bearing a distrust for institutions. This was a slum that was characterized by secret burials and hiding of the sick. It was a daunting and impossible task. To address Ebola treatment, we needed to open a transit centre - a holding centre. However the holding centre was ransacked by the community because it did not understand that there was no trust.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source

  8. “Dr. Fallah: I express to you, Madam President, and the members of the Security Council, my profound gratitude for giving me this opportunity to bring to participants a story on behalf of the voices of the communities, a story that has done us very well because we have zero cases this morning. It is a story that is due to maverick changes made by the people. It is a story that has three parts: where we were one year ago, where we are now, and where we have to go. I would say that this story is tied to the miracle of West Point. In June 2014, we had the second wave of Ebola. It was devastating and revealed human suffering and misery. People were left in rooms with dead bodies; we could not treat people in a timely fashion.”

    2015-08-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7502 (2015) · source