Ibrahim Sesay lives in Waterloo in the Western Rural of Sierra Leone. He is a Community Health Promoter involved in the Lumpa Community Health Post.
Ibrahim lives in a community which has been recorded with high numbers of malaria cases for the past 35 years. His community still does not have a hospital, however, only a small health post.
In 2019, he was chosen by BRAC Sierra Leone as a member of the Community Health Club, one of the community structures set up by the organisation as part of their Malaria Project.
Ibrahim’s main tasks were to raise awareness about how people get malaria through mosquito bites. He also focused on prevention measures like cleaning the environment to get rid of mosquitoes and emphasising the use of bed nets. In addition, he encouraged pregnant women to attend regular antenatal clinics so that they can be treated if they have malaria and other health issues. Ibrahim and his team also encouraged mothers, especially lactating ones, to take their babies and kids under-five for regular health checkups.
“BRAC Sierra Leone trained us on the major malaria prevention interventions, awareness campaigns, and motivated us to render the service to our communities. We are provided with health monitoring forms where we collect health information of pregnant women and kids. We then make referrals based on the symptoms the person complained of in the forms,” shares Ibrahim. “I feel happy and content in helping my community. This is my way of serving humanity”.
