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<\/a><\/p>\n10.29.14<\/p>\n
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UNICEF \/ Liberia\/2014\/Griggers<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n TEENAGE HEROES<\/p>\n In a Monrovia slum, a group of teenage girls has formed to go door to door to educate residents about the disease\u2014and they\u2019re already changing behaviors, with lifesaving results.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two hundred girls are weaving in and out of dirty alleys in the seaside slum of\u00a0West Point, Liberia<\/a>. One man, straddling a large drum, keeps time as their voices rise in song: \u201cBelieve it, people, Ebola can kill.\u201d Passers-by emerge from concrete buildings to watch the girls, now nearly dancing down the dirt roads in rows of two. One voice rises above the others: \u201cLet\u2019s come together to stop Ebola.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The\u00a0march<\/a>, held Sept. 17, marked the official launch of Adolescents Leading an Intense Fight Against Ebola, or A-LIFE. Made up of girls aged 16-19 and a handful of boys around the same age, the group was formed to spread awareness and education about Ebola to help curb its spread in their community. The group members came up with the name themselves and launched their mission on their own. They have already reached more than 4,000 homes in West Point.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Their community, their city, their country, desperately needs them.<\/span><\/p>\n Of the 10,141 cases and 4,922 deaths from Ebola\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0by the World Health Organization this week, more than half are in Liberia. Experts from the WHO say the real toll is likely 2.5 times more than their recorded numbers for cases and deaths in Liberia\u2014which now stand at 4,665 and 2,705, respectively. Guinea, where the epidemic began, has half as many cases as Liberia.<\/span><\/p>\n Enter A-LIFE.<\/span><\/p>\n The story of this teenage mission to spread awareness about Ebola began two years ago, when UNICEF launched an educational group for girls in West Point. The neighborhood is extremely dangerous\u2014even in a country with one of the highest rates of sexual and gender-based violence in the world. UNICEF\u2019s group was formed in 2012, with the intention of teaching young girls how to protect themselves from sexual violence.<\/span><\/p>\n The worsening of the Ebola epidemic forced them to teach the girls about a new enemy. They learned what the disease is, how people get it, what happens then. Most important, they learned what they could do to protect themselves. Learning that gave them something the rest of their community, still reeling from the violent government-imposed quarantine, did not have: knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n So they walked. From house to house, day by day, teaching the community what they had learned. Ebola is real. It is deadly. Don\u2019t shake hands. Wash them. \u201cThey took what they learned and built on it,\u201d says Sheldon Yett, UNICEF\u2019s representative in Liberia. \u201cThey embraced everybody, went to everywhere they could find, and discovered new ways to get information across.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n At first the idea of the girls going out into the community was alarming to Hawa Page, a UNICEF staff member now coordinating the group. When A-LIFE began, Page was working on an education and empowerment project with young girls in Liberia. Upon first learning of their mission, Page worried about the girls\u2019 safety. \u201cWe were afraid for them,\u201d she tells me. So UNICEF sent in support in the form of a leader in the Ebola education program to give the girls further training and provide them with hand sanitizer, rain boots, and raincoats. A supervisor has been hired to keep track of their work and take their temperature each morning before they go out. \u201cNow that they are wearing the protective gear, I\u2019m not afraid anymore,\u201d says Page.<\/span><\/p>\n Carrying education pamphlets and hand sanitizer, the girls are technically only scheduled to spend two days a week going door to door. Some go out three or four days a week\u2014others, says Page, all seven. With schools in Liberia closed indefinitely, there\u2019s not much else to do.<\/span><\/p>\n Page, who is with the girls when we speak, says she can \u201csee their enthusiasm, their energy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In effort to help me do the same, she puts Jessica T.S. Neufville, an enthusiastic 16-year-old member of A-LIFE, on the phone. \u201cI feel good educating people about Ebola and helping them see how they can prevent themselves from getting it,\u201d says Neufville. \u201cIt feels good.\u201d She explains what it\u2019s like going out in the field, why she feels better in long sleeves, and who she calls if someone appears contagious. She\u2019s scared sometimes, she says, but feels better knowing that she has hand sanitizer. It\u2019s tough work, but not too tough to stop: \u201cI could be afraid, but being afraid would stop me from going out to help these people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Tough isn\u2019t new to Neufville, or likely any of her peers. West Point, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Liberia, is no one\u2019s idea of an easy place to grow up.<\/span><\/p>\n Started as a fishing community, the sandy peninsula became a refuge for those fleeing the country\u2019s bitter 14-year civil war. The population has since thinned somewhat, but the economic scars of the war have not. Densely populated and impoverished, the community was struggling long before Ebola arrived.<\/span><\/p>\n The more than 50,000 who reside in West Point live mostly in\u00a0shacks made of zinc<\/a>\u00a0with rusted tin roofs. A lack of clean water and electricity are commonplace. With less than a dozen toilets in the entire community, poor sanitation fuels high rates of malaria and lethal cases of diarrhea. Those who don\u2019t have a \u201ccommode<\/a>\u201d in their house are forced to defecate outside\u2014so many that the government of Liberia recently\u00a0banned<\/a>\u00a0adults from doing so on the beach, though not children.<\/span><\/p>\n As the Ebola epidemic began sweeping through the region, fear and mistrust of the health workers in West Point escalated. Four days after a\u00a0mob overtook an isolation center<\/a>\u00a0in August, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ordered a mandatory 21-day quarantine on the area. But the quarantine, lifted just 10 days in, was a colossal failure. On top of inciting violence that led to the death of a 16-year-old boy, it was confusing to residents.\u00a0When it was lifted<\/a>, some took the shift as a sign that they were right: Ebola wasn\u2019t real.<\/span><\/p>\n If it weren\u2019t for A-LIFE, there\u2019s a good chance many would still believe that. According to UNICEF, A-LIFE\u2019s visits to more than 4,000 homes in West Point have spurred new behaviors in the community that are essential to curbing the epidemic. \u201cWe see at every street corner in West Point, in front of every shop, people have buckets to wash their hands. They know what they need to do to stay alive,\u201d says Yett. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a real behavior change in these communities, and that\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This phenomenon is even more remarkable to Page, who grew up in Liberia. \u201cWe shake hands and we don\u2019t wash hands here frequently\u2014but we do now,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you go to West Point, you\u2019ll see people washing hands in every community. That is just not something we do.\u201d The change, which could prove lifesaving for the community, is something she never imagined a small group of girls could accomplish. \u201cCultural change usually takes a long time. The fact that community members are seeing this and wanting these girls to continue means they are making a great impact,\u201d she says. \u201cThat makes me proud\u2014and it motivates me a lot.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The impact, to Yett, is one only these girls have the authority to make. \u201cThey are far more powerful as spokespeople and educators than a public-health official could ever hope to be because they come from that community, they\u2019re known by that community,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople understand where these girls are coming from, and people believe their messages.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Page and Yett hope groups like A-LIFE will catch on throughout Liberia and are already assessing groups in other neighborhoods who may be interested in doing something similar. For now, the story of A-LIFE is giving West Point a reason to hope. With an unprecedented epidemic spreading across countries and continents, including our own, it should give us reason, too.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Meet the Liberian Girls<\/span><\/h1>\n
Beating Ebola<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
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