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Our Biggest Project Yet: A One Year Update

2020-11-17 · announcement · John, Isata Dumbuya · 8:11 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development · mode: Advocacy & fundraising · tags: fundraising ask, heavy topic, guest or collab

A year after announcing the brothers' Partners In Health maternal health project in Kono, Sierra Leone, John reports that the Maternal Center of Excellence is still set to break ground in April 2021, that over $18.5 million (93% of the $20 million needed) has been raised, and asks for monthly and large donations to close the gap.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Recap of the PIH Sierra Leone maternal health project announced a year ago

00:00:58 — Recommending the documentary Bending the Arc; Sierra Leone's maternal mortality rate

00:01:27 — Most maternal deaths are preventable; a strengthening health system is already reducing them

  • ★★★ Almost all of those deaths are preventable with a strong health system: women die every day for want of an emergency C-section, a blood transfusion or blood pressure medication. — 00:01:27 · maternal death
  • ★★ As Sierra Leone's health system has strengthened in recent years, child and maternal mortality have dropped sharply, showing these deaths are not inevitable. — 00:01:27 · Sierra Leone, child mortality, maternal death

00:01:56 — Groundbreaking still set for April 2021; system strengthening already under way

00:02:48 — Isata Dumbuya on the full new NICU space and why the MCOE cannot come soon enough

  • ★★ Isata Dumbuya says results in the new space the babies moved to are already phenomenal after three months, but it was full yesterday, so the MCOE cannot come soon enough. — 00:02:48 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★★ Isata Dumbuya says the MCOE will be a place where Sierra Leonean women know for the first time they deserve the same care, treatment and equipment as anyone else. — 00:02:48 · Sierra Leone, Maternal Center of Excellence

00:03:16 — MCOE design, capacity and teaching role; why $20 million is needed before breaking ground

  • ★★ The MCOE design, made with hospital staff and the community, uses locally sourced materials, including stones cast off from the nearby diamond mine. — 00:03:16 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★ The mine has become a symbol of destruction and despair for many in Kono, but its stones can now become a symbol of hope. — 00:03:16
  • ★★★ The MCOE will almost triple the region's maternal hospital beds, expects over 4,000 deliveries a year and a five-fold rise in family planning visits, and will greatly increase necessary C-sections. — 00:03:45 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ As a teaching hospital, the MCOE will train the next generation of Sierra Leonean health workers, from doctors and nurses to community health workers. — 00:04:14 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ The project's five-year cost is $25 million, but $20 million must be raised before breaking ground, so the building is not left half built, unstaffed or unsupplied, a big problem in poor countries. — 00:04:14 · Partners In Health

00:04:43 — Fundraising progress (over $18.5 million, 93%) and donation asks

  • ★★★ Too often people or institutions make big promises they fail to keep or short-term investments that are soon abandoned, which never strengthens the system. — 00:04:43
  • ★★★ Thanks to thousands of monthly donors at pih.org/hankandjohn, matched by donors within Nerdfighteria, current rates will raise over $15 million over five years. — 00:04:43 · Nerdfighteria · also in: I Have the BEST News
  • ★★ Another $3.5 million has come from large donors to PIH. — 00:05:13 · Partners In Health
  • ★★★ Altogether over $18.5 million has been raised, which John calls the most amazing thing Nerdfighteria has done in 13 years. — 00:05:13 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ They have raised 93% of what is needed to break ground; $1.5 million remains to be raised. — 00:05:42
  • ★★ John expected pandemic stresses to reduce donations, but they have risen every month, which he finds encouraging. — 00:05:42 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ John has seen how critical the need for better maternal and child health care in Kono is: an emergency that does not make headlines. — 00:06:11
  • ★★ John asks people able to give about $5,000 or more to use a separate link in the description or email him at sparksflyup@gmail.com. — 00:06:11

00:06:40 — Sierra Leonean ownership, falling but still high maternal death, closing ask and sign-off

  • ★★★ The MCOE, like the whole hospital, will be owned by Sierra Leoneans through their government, staffed almost entirely by Sierra Leonean health workers and largely funded by the government. — 00:06:40 · Maternal Center of Excellence, Koidu Government Hospital, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ The heroes of this story are people like Isata, who sacrifice so much to help vulnerable women deliver safely. — 00:06:40
  • ★★★ Not long ago the Sierra Leone figure was 1 in 17 women, so maternal death is declining and progress is real, just not fast enough. — 00:07:09 · maternal death, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ Every health worker John met in Sierra Leone tells of knowing how to save a mother or child but being unable to, for lack of an ambulance, blood bank or safe operating room. — 00:07:09 · Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ John asks viewers who can to join in donating at pih.org/hankandjohn. — 00:07:39
  • ★★ John thanks those who cannot donate for their attention: it matters, because if the world paid attention to this crisis, more would be done to stop it. — 00:07:39

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Maternal Center of Excellence · maternal death · Partners In Health · Sierra Leone

Also: People: Isata Dumbuya

Works: Bending the Arc

Organizations: Koidu Government Hospital · Netflix · Wellbody Clinic

Concepts: Caesarean section · child mortality · community health worker · global health · neonatal intensive care unit · tuberculosis

Places: Kono District

Events: COVID-19 pandemic

Only in the description or credits: Ministry of Health and Sanitation (Sierra Leone)

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