Ebola Crisis: World Vision burial team wins humanitarian award

BY KAREN HOMER JUN 1, 2015

Grace Kargbo, a World Vision Sierra Leone burial team manager, accepted the Bond International Humanitarian Award in London on Monday, June 1st, on behalf of her colleague Maseray Kamara and more than 800 other burial workers as well as the World Vision-led aid consortium that trained and equipped them.

Maseray is an Ebola survivor who lost her husband and sister to the disease, yet has found new meaning in life as a member of an Ebola burial team.

Her story was submitted to the nominating committee as representative of the courage and caring of Ebola burial workers. 

“This recognition is a tremendous encouragement after all the suffering we have seen in Sierra Leone and across West Africa because of Ebola,” Grace says. 

"Until tonight, these brave souls have received little recognition at home and abroad. In fact, they have often been shunned, ostracized, vilified because they are burial workers." 

Burial teams have been commended for carrying out their work with sensitivity to local customs and the faith traditions of both Christians and Muslims. Before the burial teams took over, family members of Christians and Muslims typically washed the bodies of the deceased, a practice that exposed them to highly infectious body fluids. 

The World Health Organization has attributed 60 percent of Ebola cases in Guinea, where the West Africa outbreak began, to unsafe burials. Early in the outbreak in Sierra Leone, 365 people were infected through to participation in the funeral of a traditional healer. 

Since November 2014, 57 teams have conducted more than 16,100 safe and dignified burials of Ebola victims and others in Sierra Leone. Funding for the program was provided by the UK government. 

SOURCE: (http://now.worldvision.org/story/ebola-crisis-burial-teams-win-humanitarian-award)