Yesterday, 6 August 2015, Fr. Natale visited the generalate house of the Camillians and during a pleasant conversation he told us about the current situation in Makeni. We would like to remind you that Fr. Paganelli welcomed and supported the project of the Camillian Task Force in Sierra Leone to combat the Ebola virus and help a poor population exhausted by sickness and death.

‘First of all thank you for the opportunity you have given me to provide you with information about the situation of the diocese of Makeni. Unfortunately we cannot speak about post-Ebola because we are still at an Ebola stage, even though we hope that we are at the final stage, a final stage that is lasting more than was expected, the famous tail of the epidemic – let us say that we are moving towards the end. If I am not mistaken 12/13 days have already passed since there were new cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone. However we have to reach the famous forty days for the country to be declared Ebola free. At the present time only Liberia is in this situation whereas this is not the case with Sierra Leone and Guinea. Therefore we are still at a stage when we must be careful that the infection does not return, because of the fact that people move continuously and when a person feels ill they tend to go away, ask for help, feel safe and tend to go back to the villages where their mothers were born and it is for this reason that the infection spread so forcefully throughout the country.

  With the Camillian Task Force, with which we have worked for a number of months, during a first stage we tried to continue the sensitisation of the local population in order to prevent infection. Then we began a systematic programme to help 400 survivors (twenty in each parish) with help of both an economic character, to help families that had lost their loved ones, and of a psychological kind to help them to overcome the trauma. ‘Accompaniers’ were trained, one in each parish as well as others from other institutions, above all from religious communities. Each accompanier follows a group of twenty people, and here there are also some Camillians brothers. Now we have a brother from Kenya, Bonaventure, who is coordinating activity together with a local nurse who has followed a course in order to be able in the future to continue this psychological assistance. In addition, there is a project, again of the Camillian Task Force, to strengthen these clinics so that they will be able to provide an immediate response if in the future similar situations reoccur.

Our dream is to manage to establish, when all these projects are finished, therefore during the real post-Ebola stage, a diocesan centre, a sort of listening centre, which still does not exist in Sierra Leone. Thus from these assistants who have taken part in the various courses organised by the CTF (there will be another in September), we would like to identify two or three who are especially capable so as to be able to create a listening centre that is permanent.

This kind of assistance which is so specialised and is systematic in form has never existed in Sierra Leone, not even after the very ferocious civil war. I hope that starting with the experience of these 400 people there is someone who has developed the idea that this kind of assistance is very important and necessary so that we can continue with our work.