Stories from Quick Reads and Liberia
Can Africa Really Maintain Its Own African Centers for Disease Control?
Anna K. Mwaba discusses the future of the newly established African Center for Disease Control: The establishment of such a center in Africa is not a particularly new idea; talks on the need for more effective means to combat epidemics on the continent were held in July 2013 at the...
Liberia77: Liberia's History Through Photos
“Imagine life without photos. No smiling faces. No family snapshots. No record of your past,” says Liberia77, a project that documents Liberia's history through photos: When Canadian brothers Jeff and Andrew Topham returned to the war torn West African country of their childhood to re-shoot their father’s photos for a...
#ISurvivedEbola Campaign Releases First Video
The #ISurvivedEbola campaign has released its first video that feature Ebola survivors from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The multimedia campaign engages Ebola survivors to highlight stories of hope and resilience: This is the first video in a series that will be rolled out as part of #ISurvivedEbola, a multidimensional...
Animated Video Dispels Ebola Myths
Ebola: A Poem for the Living (English) from United Methodist Communications on Vimeo. United Methodist Communications, Chocolate Moose Media and iheed have collaborated to produce an animated video for use in West Africa that helps dispel myths about how Ebola is spread and promotes prevention of the disease. United Methodist...
Ebola Strips Africans of Their Cultural and Human Values
A social anthropologist and sociologist Ginny Moony explains how Ebola outbreak strips off Africans of their humanity: The way West-Africans care for their sick and deceased, supposedly differs significantly from that of the rest of the world. This is far from true. All over the world, the essence of care...
Questioning Weekend's Media Silence About Ebola
“When will Ebola news go 24/7?,” asks a US/Canadian professor Crawford Kilian: I have long been used to outbreak news dropping off on weekends. The media, government agencies, and NGOs all knock off on Friday afternoon and show up again Monday morning. But after the last few weeks of Ebola,...
Threats to Press Freedom in the Fight Against Ebola in Liberia
The Press Union of Liberia is concerned about the threat to freedom of information as a result of the actions taken by the government to limit the expansion of the Ebola virus. The union wrote a letter to the Minister of Justice to draw his attention to the challenges media...
The Ebola Truth
The Ebola Truth is a Facebook page that aims to document the situation with the Ebola virus on the African continent.
The Heroic Everyday Work of Lab Scientists in the Fight Against Ebola in Liberia
During the current crisis of the Ebola virus disease (EVD), many reports showcased stories about patients, medical staff, vaccines and the consequences of the disease on the affected countries. But rare are the reports about the daily work of laboratory technicians and of those who care for their daily needs. In...
Mapping the 567 Ebola Cases in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone
On June 16, 49 new Ebola cases, 12 of them deadly, were reported by the WHO. Bart Janssens, director of operations of The international NGO Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF)) released a statement saying that: The epidemic is out of control, with the appearance of new sites in...
The Disneyfication of Ellen Sirleaf Johnson
Aaron Leaf discusses how the Liberian president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is often presented by western media as an avatar of all things good. He says that this was the narrative that made her an icon of international development and women’s empowerment.
News Websites Indicted over Land Grab Report
News Websites Rue89 and Basta Mag are indicted [fr] following charges by French investment and industrial holding group Bolloré over a report in which they implicate Bolloré [fr] in land grab activities [fr] in Africa. The report lists the group's activities in Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Politis, a weekly analysis website, reacted...
Côte d'Ivoire: Armed Men attack Army Positions in Abidjan, Dabou and at the Liberian Border
Bernard Assandé narrates the latest attack [fr] on the Force Républicaine de la Côte d'Ivoire (FRCI, the national army of Côte d'Ivoire) in Dabou on August 15. The army regained control of the city after a night of confrontation. On August 6, 7 people were killed in Abidjan [fr] after similar attacks....
Sierra Leone: Reflections on Charles Taylor and Justice
Robtel Pailey reflects on Charles Taylor's verdict: “What Charles Taylor’s verdict signifies for me is the need to reconfigure Africa’s domestic systems of justice, so that we don’t have to rely on the West to judge when, where, and under what circumstances we can punish for transgressions that we deem...
Liberia: A Preface to Liberia’s Complicated Biography
Robtel Pailey discusses Liberia's complicated biography: “April 12, 1980 is often described as the beginning of Liberia’s end. I think of it as the preface to Liberia’s long, complicated biography, the beginning of our awakening. It was a day when our pomp and circumstance left a deafening echo; when we...
Africa: Weaving the African Dream Through Social Innovations
Gamel identifies social innovations that weave the African dream: “Tech in Education: This project is the main motivation behind today’s post. Tech in Education is a 48hr gathering of ideas, people and digital tools aimed at creating novel web and mobile solutions to improve learning amongst primary and secondary school...
Africa: 10 West African Club Tracks
This is Boima Tucker's 2011 10 club friendly Afropop tracks: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one song dominate a nation’s psyche like Junior Freeman and African Soldier’s “Dumyarea” did in Liberia this summer. Maybe it was because it was an election season, and all the politicians co-opted the song...
Liberia: For the Liberiaphiles
A post for the Liberiaphiles from Chris: “Yesterday’s vote was marred by violence the day before. It looks like badly-trained and led police are to blame, but we will see.”
Africa: On Cutting Aid to Countries Violating LGBTI Rights
Statement of African social justice activists on the decision of the British government to “cut aid” to African countries that violate the rights of LGBTI people in Africa: “We, the undersigned African social justice activists, working to advance societies that affirm peoples’ differences, choice and agency throughout Africa, express the...
Liberia: Voting Ends in Liberia's Referendum
Voting ends in Liberia 23rd August referendum with the Liberia's Election Coordinating Committee (ECC), which deployed 400 elections observers throughout 15 counties reporting that voting was peaceful. The referendum was marred with an error on the ballot paper…
Liberia: Visiting a Country of Many Firsts in Africa
Dr. Sipho Moyo visits Liberia, a country of many firsts in Africa: “Liberia was Africa’s first republic, colonized in 1822 and declared independent in 1847. It is also home to Africa’s first female president: President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. I met with her last week at the Executive Mansion in Monrovia...
