Orphaned children (from left) Leno Emmanuel, Leno Ousmane Tamba, Leno Hawa and Leno Mathias, at their home in Conakry, Guinea on January 12, 2016. They lost both parents to Ebola within one week in October 2014, the year the epidemic broke out. Cellou Binani/AFP
Orphaned children (from left) Leno Emmanuel, Leno Ousmane Tamba, Leno Hawa and Leno Mathias, at their home in Conakry, Guinea on January 12, 2016. They lost both parents to Ebola within one week in October 2014, the year the epidemic broke out. Cellou Binani/AFP
Orphaned children (from left) Leno Emmanuel, Leno Ousmane Tamba, Leno Hawa and Leno Mathias, at their home in Conakry, Guinea on January 12, 2016. They lost both parents to Ebola within one week in October 2014, the year the epidemic broke out. Cellou Binani/AFP
Orphaned children (from left) Leno Emmanuel, Leno Ousmane Tamba, Leno Hawa and Leno Mathias, at their home in Conakry, Guinea on January 12, 2016. They lost both parents to Ebola within one week in Oc

Ebola orphans struggle to resume their lives amid stigma


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Conakry, Guinea // Saa Mathias Lenoh, a high school student in the Guinean capital Conakry, is “learning to smile little by little” – like thousands of other youngsters orphaned by Ebola in west Africa.

According to the United Nations, more than 22,000 children lost at least one parent to the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history whose epicentre lay in the west African countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

“The children really suffered at the start. The moment one came to know of illness in the family, they were automatically stigmatised,” said Yaya Diallo, an official with Plan International, a leading global NGO.

“The neighbours and even neighbourhood children who would play with them and went to school with them were forbidden by their parents to do so,” he said.

“Their own parents in turn would virtually lock them up at home or send them to communities very far away so that they would not have to suffer,” Mr Diallo said.

The outbreak initially led to a knee-jerk reaction from locals, and children from affected families often bore the brunt of ignorance and prejudice.

In one particularly horrific case in neighbouring Liberia, Fatu Sherrif, 12, was locked into her home with her dead mother in the quarantined hamlet of Ballajah, 150 kilometres from the capital Monrovia, as panicked neighbours fled to the forest.

Her cries could be heard for several days by the few who had stayed in the abandoned village before she died alone, without food or water.

International organisations deplored the lack of traditional solidarity to those affected this time round in contrast to earlier times, such as when AIDS had ravaged the continent.

But since then, nearly all those children have been taken in by foster families or are in care, the UN childrens’ agency Unicef noted.

“Today, no study shows that a child is on the streets because his parents have died of Ebola,” Mr Diallo said.

But despite this, many children have suffered.

“Life has been difficult,” said Lenoh, 18, who lost a sister and both his parents to the disease in October 2014.

“If it hadn’t been for my elder brother, I don’t know how I would have continued my studies,” he said.

“Luckily nobody in my school knows that I’m an Ebola survivor except the principal who I took into confidence. He encourages me and comforts me often.”

His elder brother Emmanuel was not so lucky.

“I was forced to stop going to university and start working,” he said. “I lost both my parents in the span of a week.”

Emmanuel said his mother, a trader, contracted the virus during one of her regular trips to Sierra Leone, and then infected other members of the family.

“Today, I cannot finish my studies. Otherwise without my help, the rest of the family can’t continue their studies.”

* Agence France-Presse

It's up to you to go green

Nils El Accad, chief executive and owner of Organic Foods and Café, says going green is about “lifestyle and attitude” rather than a “money change”; people need to plan ahead to fill water bottles in advance and take their own bags to the supermarket, he says.

“People always want someone else to do the work; it doesn’t work like that,” he adds. “The first step: you have to consciously make that decision and change.”

When he gets a takeaway, says Mr El Accad, he takes his own glass jars instead of accepting disposable aluminium containers, paper napkins and plastic tubs, cutlery and bags from restaurants.

He also plants his own crops and herbs at home and at the Sheikh Zayed store, from basil and rosemary to beans, squashes and papayas. “If you’re going to water anything, better it be tomatoes and cucumbers, something edible, than grass,” he says.

“All this throwaway plastic - cups, bottles, forks - has to go first,” says Mr El Accad, who has banned all disposable straws, whether plastic or even paper, from the café chain.

One of the latest changes he has implemented at his stores is to offer refills of liquid laundry detergent, to save plastic. The two brands Organic Foods stocks, Organic Larder and Sonnett, are both “triple-certified - you could eat the product”.  

The Organic Larder detergent will soon be delivered in 200-litre metal oil drums before being decanted into 20-litre containers in-store.

Customers can refill their bottles at least 30 times before they start to degrade, he says. Organic Larder costs Dh35.75 for one litre and Dh62 for 2.75 litres and refills will cost 15 to 20 per cent less, Mr El Accad says.

But while there are savings to be had, going green tends to come with upfront costs and extra work and planning. Are we ready to refill bottles rather than throw them away? “You have to change,” says Mr El Accad. “I can only make it available.”

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