Monrovia – The Pentecostal Mission Unlimited (PMU-Liberia) has ended an eight month Ebola community action platform (E-cap 2) project, calling on community members to promote good health.
In an exclusive interview with FrontPageAfrica over the weekend at his ELWA office, the Program Manager of the organization explained that the project was intended to promote community health, ensue community resilience to diseases in Liberia.
According to Mr. Davestus James, PMU-Liberia was picked among several NGOs to implement the E-cap 2 project in Lofa County which targeted over 60 communities.
He said about two hundred fifty thousand United States dollars was used to implement the project in Lofa County. The project was funded by the United States Agency for International Development, USAID through Mercy Corps Liberia
Said James: “Recently we encountered Ebola. Now coming down to the community level where people were victimized. What can you do in the absence of Ebola or prepare them (community) for similar occurrences of community illnesses?”
James said providing basic education or public awareness about infectious deisases and other illnesses will help communities to be fully prepared for future outbreak of diseases in the absence of external donors or institutions.
He said during the E-cap project, the PMU reactivated the Community Health Committees (CHC) which is a major component of the health sector.
“They (CHC) were dormant. Some of these structures went dead. The coming in of E-cap two especially for those of us that were in Lofa helped to reactivate those CHCs structures at the community.
James said though sixty communities were earmarked for the project, the PMU was however managed to reach over 90 communities as a result of the support from community members.
With more than 15 years experience in primary and secondary health care, Pentecostal Mission Unlimited (PMU)-Liberia is legally recognized non-governmental organization (NGO) in Liberia and an implementing partner for PMU Interlife with major funding from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). PMU was recently in March 2011, granted a three year accreditation to operate as a national non-governmental and non-for-profit organization health organization.
Following the end of war in 2003, PMU, through a grant from United Nations Population Fund(UNFPA), PMU implemented an emergency health project that increased health care for 120,000 internally displaced persons(IDP) in Montserrado, Grand Gedeh, Grand Bassa, Cape Mount and Lofa counties. Approximately 98,000 persons benefited from direct medical services.
Since 2004, in close cooperation with MOHSW and other partners including: UNICEF, WHO, ECHO and JSI/RHRC, PMU has increased access to health in Montserrado, Bomi and Lofa counties. During the resettlement period in 2003, PMU provided mobile medical clinic services for 39,000 returning Liberian refugees and displaced from Guinea and Sierra Leone from four districts in Lofa County.