In addition to, of course, food security and access to clean, safe water, addressing the lack of adequate healthcare is the most pressing need in Sub-Saharan Africa today, especially in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

In the impoverished country of Sierra Leone, people are literally in desperate need medicines and the clinics and hospitals we support are suffering shortages of medical supplies and equipment.

In 2014-2015, when Sierra Leone was seriously affected by the deadly Ebola virus which caused almost 11,000 deaths and more than 25,000 life-threatening infections the country’s fragile healthcare system nearly collapsed.

Five years later, with the country is still recovering from that epidemic, today its healthcare system is reeling under the strains of coronavirus as hundreds of healthcare workers in the national health sector have succumbed to the virus due to the lack of proper protection equipment.

This terrible situation has led to the shuttering of hospitals which has left countless thousands of Sierra Leoneans without treatment and care when they have contracted possibly deadly illnesses including malaria, pneumonia and waterborne diseases.

Today, all of Sierra Leone, as is most of the world, is threatened by the COVID-19 pandemic and we are being asked to help send vitally needed medical supplies like hospital beds, blankets, mosquito nets, anti-biotic medicines, surgical gloves, thermometers, stethoscopes, and hospital supplies.

The small farming community named Mokoba has a population of about 5,600 with almost 75 per cent being women and children. The farming community is among the poorest in Sierra Leone, with farmers struggling to barely grow enough to feed the village and having nothing extra to sell to get money for medicines or medical help.

To address this growing crisis, we hope to soon be shipping a 40-foot container filled with the brim of medicines and medical supplies to the Mokoba clinic and others nearby to help ensure that no one who needs medical care is not turned away without the treatment they need to survive.