IMC and village health communities improve primary health care in areas devastated by war

During the Liberian civil war, the residents of the town of Barkedu, deep in the rainforest of northeastern Liberia, suffered terrible violence at the hands of rebels loyal to warlord Charles Taylor. Hundreds of villagers, primarily members of the Mandingo tribe, were massacred in July of 1990. Most of the survivors fled for neighboring Guinea. Some returned in 1994, but left again, fearing further persecution when Taylor became president in 1997.

PHOTO: Sara Terry An IMC-trained attendant holds the hand of a baby waiting with its mother at Barkedu Clinic, one of 18 clinics run by IMC in Lofa County in northern Liberia.

Following Taylor’s resignation in 2003, villagers tentatively began returning to their homes and rebuilding their lives. To bolster their efforts, IMC has established a clinic to provide primary health care to the more than 15,000 people in Barkedu and the eight villages that surround it. IMC supplies the community with medicine; provides maternal and pediatric care; and trains local health care professionals how to immunize children, how to educate community members about HIV/AIDS, and how to identify and respond to signs of sexual violence.

IMC has also taught safe and thorough reproductive health care practices to 23 traditional birth attendants in the region. The attendants now have the tools to counsel expectant mothers, to identify at-risk pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases, and to deliver babies using sanitary methods. These simple lessons have transformed maternal health care in Barkedu. “When IMC arrived, the traditional birth attendants had their own way of doing things,” says IMC officer Emmanuel Kollie. “They used to deliver babies with their bare hands. Now they are able to deliver babies safely.”

To help ensure that the clinic is meeting the specific needs of the population of Barkedu, IMC established a committee of 20 villagers, called the Village Health Committee (VHC). The VHC serves as the liaison between the clinic and the community, bringing health education into the villages, and incorporating community feedback into the long-term planning for the clinic. “It’s so important to us that everything being done at the clinic is shared with the Village Health Committee, so that the community knows what is going on,” says VHC chairman Vankamo A. Sheriff.

IMC is also laying the groundwork to help sustain the clinic when IMC leaves and operations are handed over to the government. Three members of the VHC have been trained to set up income-generating projects, such as growing cassava and raising poultry, to help ensure that the clinic will continue to thrive for years to come.