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I Have the BEST News

2025-05-13 · announcement · John · 5:54 · watch on YouTube

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

Six years after announcing his family's donation for a maternal center in Sierra Leone, John reports that the community raised the $20 million needed, that maternal mortality there fell from 1 in 17 to about 1 in 74, and that the Maternal Center of Excellence will finish construction in October and open in January; he argues that sustained attention and resources change things and asks for ongoing support.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Recalling the 2019 announcement and how the $20 million was raised: monthly donors, the matching fund, socks and soap

00:01:27 — Maternal mortality in Sierra Leone falls from 1 in 17 to about 1 in 74; why: a stronger whole health system

  • ★★★ John says all those efforts combined raised the needed $20 million and then some. — 00:01:27 · Nerdfighteria, Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★★ John says, thanks to the government and groups like PIH, Sierra Leone's lifetime maternal death risk fell from 1 in 17 to around 1 in 74, an over 60% reduction, though still too high. — 00:01:27 · Sierra Leone, maternal death, Partners In Health
  • ★★★ John says the fall is a reminder that when we pay attention to a crisis and focus resources on it, change can happen and the world can get better. — 00:02:00
  • ★★★ John says the reduction is not simple: serving babies and new moms needs a stronger whole health system, with ambulances, primary care clinics, community health workers and the Maternal Center of Excellence. — 00:02:00 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ John says system strengthening has run through the last six years: more nursing students and residents at KGH as it became a teaching hospital, and more community health workers. — 00:02:30 · Koidu Government Hospital
  • ★★ John describes the Maternal Center of Excellence as the capstone: 120 hospital beds, operating rooms for emergency C-sections, a huge blood bank and a NICU. — 00:02:30 · Maternal Center of Excellence

00:02:59 — The Maternal Center of Excellence will complete construction in October and open to patients in January

  • ★★★ John announces that the long-dreamed-of Maternal Center of Excellence will complete construction in October and, after intensive training and protocol refinement, begin opening to patients in January. — 00:02:59 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ John says it will start with inpatient care, phase in outpatients, and as a teaching facility dramatically improve care for babies and moms in eastern Sierra Leone. — 00:02:59 · Maternal Center of Excellence, Sierra Leone

00:03:33 — Credit to Nerdfighteria, the Ministry of Health and Kono builders; the need for ongoing support and attention; sign-off

  • ★★★ John says the facility would not exist without Nerdfighteria, which raised the literal majority of the funds needed. — 00:03:33 · Nerdfighteria, Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★★ John says it also needed the Ministry of Health's support: PIH is not building a parallel health system, and the facility belongs to Sierra Leoneans through their government. — 00:03:33 · Partners In Health, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ John credits other PIH donors and the construction staff, mostly women from Kono district who learned new skills and worked incredibly hard to build it. — 00:04:02 · Partners In Health
  • ★★ John says the MCOE needs ongoing support because its funding needs do not end when construction is complete. — 00:04:02 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★ John says the MCOE will be a world-class training facility that strengthens and supports Sierra Leone's health care workforce. — 00:04:02 · Maternal Center of Excellence, Sierra Leone
  • ★★ John says the MCOE will care for thousands or tens of thousands of people a year and radically reduce maternal and infant mortality in Kono and beyond. — 00:04:32 · Maternal Center of Excellence, maternal death, child mortality

  • ★★★ Repeating what he said in 2019, John says long-term systemic problems demand long-term systemic responses, so ongoing support is needed. — 00:04:32

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

  • ★★★ John says Sierra Leone is a vastly safer place to give birth than in 2019; Nerdfighteria is not the main character of that story but played a role. — 00:04:32 · Sierra Leone, Nerdfighteria

  • ★★★ John thinks this can in many ways be cited as the greatest accomplishment in the 18-year history of this strange and lovely little YouTube channel. — 00:05:01 · YouTube, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ John says the MCOE's opening is not the end but the beginning of people in Kono accessing the high-quality, dignified care every human being deserves. — 00:05:01 · Maternal Center of Excellence
  • ★★★ John says support is needed more than ever: donating at pih.org/hankandjohn, buying socks or soap, and also donating attention. — 00:05:01 · Partners In Health

  • ★★★ John says we solve the problems we pay attention to: long-term, open-ended attention can address long-term crises, from 1 in 17 to 1 in 74, and they are just getting started. — 00:05:30 · maternal death

    “we solve the problems we pay attention to”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Maternal Center of Excellence · maternal death · Sierra Leone

Also: Projects: Good Store

Organizations: Koidu Government Hospital · YouTube

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

Places: Kono District

Only in the description or credits: Awesome Socks Club · Ministry of Health and Sanitation (Sierra Leone) · Partners In Health · Sun Basin Soap

Replies to

  • continues · Why We're Donating $6,500,000 — “So in that video back in 2019, I was announcing that our family was donating six and a half million dollars”

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