Skip to content

After 15 Years on YouTube, THIS IS THE MOST AMAZING THING

2022-01-04 · announcement · John · 9:32 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Global development (also: Nerdfighteria) · mode: Announcements · tags: fundraising ask, heavy topic, timely hook, community lore

On the channel's 15th anniversary John announces that Nerdfighteria's Partners In Health project in Kono, Sierra Leone is on track to raise over $25 million, shows how Kono's health system is improving through one girl's story and its clinics, and announces an expansion to $31 million, with his family adding $2 million and a donation ask.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Fifteen years of Vlogbrothers; the 2019 commitment to PIH in Kono

  • ★★ John notes that exactly 15 years ago he was making his second Vlogbrothers video, and today announces what he calls the most amazing thing in this corner of the internet. — 00:00:00 · Vlogbrothers
  • ★★ In 2019 John's family made a long-term commitment to support Partners In Health's effort to radically reduce maternal mortality in Kono District, Sierra Leone. — 00:00:00 · Partners In Health, maternal death, Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ John says that in Kono District at the time, 1 in 17 women died in pregnancy or childbirth. — 00:00:00 · maternal death

00:00:29 — The $25 million goal, monthly donors and the matching fund, groundbreaking, on track to raise over $25 million

  • ★★★ Partners In Health needed $25 million to build, supply and staff a maternal care center and NICU at Koidu Government Hospital, the only hospital serving Kono's 500,000 people. — 00:00:29 · Partners In Health, Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★ Even before COVID, raising $25 million felt between ambitious and impossible, but John says it was worth reaching for because it could transform care in the region. — 00:00:29 · COVID-19 pandemic
  • ★★★ Since then thousands of viewers have become monthly donors, and hundreds more formed a matching fund so every monthly dollar is matched. — 00:00:58 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ With PIH's own fundraising and support from Life's Library and the Awesome Socks Club, ground has broken on the Maternal Center of Excellence. — 00:00:58 · Partners In Health, Awesome Socks Club, Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ John says the Maternal Center of Excellence is on track to open in 2023. — 00:00:58 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★★ John announces the project is on track to raise over $25 million, meaning if monthly donations continue at about their current level. (hedged) — 00:01:27 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★ For those interested in how the money is raised and accounted for, an unlisted livestream is linked in the doobly-doo. — 00:01:27 · doobly-doo
  • ★★★ Nerdfighteria is large but not that large, and reaching such an ambitious target faster than even the rosiest projections shows what such communities can accomplish. — 00:01:27 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★ In a time when so much is terrible, John is heartened by the generosity and solidarity of the last two years. — 00:02:09
  • ★★★ Kono's health system is getting stronger: fewer mothers die for want of an emergency C-section and more kids survive, though maternal mortality is still hundreds of times higher than it should be. — 00:02:09 · maternal death, Sierra Leone

00:02:38 — Falling child mortality at Koidu; Emma's tuberculous meningitis and three ways to read her story

  • ★★★ In 2021 alone Koidu Government Hospital saw a 36% reduction in child mortality at its pediatric ward. — 00:02:38 · Koidu Government Hospital, child mortality
  • ★★ John worries that statistics can obscure the hundreds of human stories they contain, so he tells one. — 00:02:38
  • ★★★ Emma, a 13-year-old in Kono and twin of Kadie, had a seizure; first treated for suspected malaria, she was driven five hours to a CT scanner, which revealed tuberculous meningitis. — 00:02:38 · Koidu Government Hospital, malaria, tuberculosis
  • ★★ After five months of treatment Emma recovered, and inspired by her nurses, both Emma and Kadie want to become nurses. — 00:03:37
  • ★★★ Emma's story can be read three ways: a stronger health system saved her; with widely available CT scanning she would never have got so sick; and many Kono children die in her situation because the hospital is too far and expensive. — 00:03:37

00:04:06 — The health system as a wheel; clinics in Combayende, Suwaffe and Kaima; Wellbody Clinic

  • ★★★ John likens Kono's health system to a wheel: Koidu Government Hospital is the hub, surrounded by primary health care centers with safe delivery spaces, trained staff and a referral and transport system. — 00:04:06 · Koidu Government Hospital

  • ★★ John says the project taught from the start that long-term systemic problems demand long-term systemic solutions. — 00:04:35

    “long-term systemic problems demand long-term systemic solutions”

  • ★★ On their 2019 visit to Kono, John and Sarah saw a primary health care center in Kombayendeh that was not functioning: no running water, electricity or paid staff; the only care that day was a vaccination. — 00:04:35 · Sarah Urist Green

  • ★★ With support from PIH donors and Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health, the Kombayendeh clinic now has a stocked pharmacy, running water, a laboratory, clinician training, and patients. — 00:05:04 · Partners In Health, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ After big improvements, the clinic in Sewafe, which saw 5,000 patients in 2020, became a safe place to deliver babies and saw over 20,000 patients in 2021. — 00:05:33 · Partners In Health
  • ★★★ Asked what else they needed, PIH Sierra Leone named teaching classrooms and a 100-bed dormitory, an outpatient department with maternal HIV support and family planning, a medicine warehouse, and support for the Kayima clinic. — 00:06:03 · Partners In Health, Maternal Center of Excellence, Sierra Leone
  • ★★★ The Kayima clinic lacks dry-season running water, night electricity, an adequate pharmacy and delivery facilities: it has one bed for laboring mothers in a city of 90,000. — 00:06:32
  • ★★ Ibrahim Rogers (quoted): The facility's chief health officer, Ibrahim Rogers, says his first challenge is water: every inch of their work needs water. — 00:07:01
  • ★★ At the Kayima clinic, staff refill water buckets by walking to the city tap, and a traditional birth attendant often holds a flashlight while others deliver babies in darkness. — 00:07:01
  • ★★★ John says the Kayima clinic's conditions dramatically increase the risks for mother and child, and it simply doesn't have to be this way. — 00:07:01 · maternal death

00:07:30 — Expansion to $31 million, the family's extra $2 million, donation ask, thanks and sign-off

  • ★★★ The PIH-supported Wellbody Clinic, the best in Kono, has the stuff, space, staff, systems and support, and has had no maternal death in over a year. — 00:07:30 · maternal death, Partners In Health
  • ★★★ John's family is increasing its personal commitment to Partners In Health by $2 million over the next four years. — 00:07:30 · Partners In Health
  • ★★★ They hope to raise another $4 million in that time, taking the project from $25 million to $31 million to support the Kayima clinic and expand the MCOE; some will come from Pizzamas. (hedged) — 00:08:00 · Maternal Center of Excellence, Pizzamas
  • ★★★ John says the most efficient way to support Kono's health system is to become a monthly or one-time donor at pih.org/hankandjohn. — 00:08:00 · Partners In Health
  • ★ John thanks PIH Sierra Leone's executive director Dr. Bailor Barrie, maternal care lead Isata Dumbuya, and everyone at DFTBA.com. — 00:08:29 · DFTBA Records, Partners In Health, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ John thanks every donor, from 10-year-olds giving $5 to a $500,000 gift from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. — 00:08:29 · YouTube
  • ★★★ John says the project got here the only way people get anywhere good: together. — 00:08:29 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ John thanks those who follow and share the project whether or not they can give: attention is also a gift, and a critical one. — 00:08:52

  • ★★★ If John has learned one thing from 15 years on YouTube, it is never to underestimate Nerdfighteria. — 00:09:21 · Nerdfighteria, Vlogbrothers, YouTube

    “Never underestimate Nerdfighteria.”

In the description and comments

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Emma (patient) · Koidu Government Hospital · Kono District · Maternal Center of Excellence · maternal death · Partners In Health · primary health care

Also: People: Ibrahim Rogers · Kadie · Sarah Urist Green

Projects: Pizzamas

Organizations: Wellbody Clinic · YouTube

Terms: doobly-doo

Concepts: Caesarean section · child mortality · HIV/AIDS · identifiable victim effect · malaria · meningitis · neonatal intensive care unit · systems thinking · tuberculosis · vaccine

Places: Combayende · Kayima · Sierra Leone

Events: COVID-19 pandemic

Only in the description or credits: Awesome Socks Club · Bailor Barrie · DFTBA Records · Isata Dumbuya · Life's Library · Ministry of Health and Sanitation (Sierra Leone) · Susan Wojcicki

Also centred on Kono District: Why Are Poor Countries Poor? · GOOD NEWS

Also centred on primary health care: Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Global Health

Later videos replying to this one