NI 493 - Love in the time of Ebola - June, 2016

NI 493 - June, 2016

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Love in the time of Ebola

A note from the editor

Hazel Healy

Ebola, as told by Sierra Leoneans

This edition is something of a journalistic experiment. It’s the product of a collaboration with a remarkable group of Sierra Leonean citizen reporters. Trained by media advocates On Our Radar, they give us a privileged insight into the aftershocks of Ebola in this corner of West Africa.

The reporters took me on a journey from the coastal capital Freetown in the west to the early epicentre in the remote east; their stories reveal Ebola’s lasting impact on friendship, community and the ties that bind us to one another.

More than half of this magazine’s Big Story is given over to reporters’ accounts, where they relate their experiences, and those of their friends and neighbours, in their own words (see Where my father lies and Everything is on my shoulders).

This joint-effort storytelling is thanks to a partnership with On Our Radar, who use new technology to bring people from the margins on to the front page. The citizen reporter pieces you read in this magazine grew out of SMS messages on a hub that functions like a glass-sided story beehive – visit nin.tl/AfterEbolaHub to see how ideas germinated and took root to become features.

This month, the magazine is actually only the half of it. We are also delighted to be publishing web documentary vignettes from our citizen reporters. Don’t miss it: newint.org/after-ebola

This multiplatform Ebola project has been made possible by the European Journalism Centre (EJC) via its Innovation in Development Reporting Grant Programme.

Elsewhere in the magazine, we reveal the inner workings of special tribunals that we will be seeing more of if TTP and TTIP trade deals are successful.

Hazel Healy for the New Internationalist co-operative.
www.newint.org

The big story

On high alert, post-Ebola: Nafisatu Jabbi (centre right) at the Koindu community clinic, accompanied by a newly replenished staff team, including Community Health Officer Alfonsus Vandi (centre left). Photo: Hazel Healy

On high alert, post-Ebola: Nafisatu Jabbi (centre right) at the Koindu community clinic, accompanied by a newly replenished staff team, including Community Health Officer Alfonsus Vandi (centre left).

Photo: Hazel Healy

Did we learn the right lessons from Ebola?

And will Sierra Leone be ready, should the virus return? Hazel Healy travelled there to find out.

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Features

Ebola - the facts

Statistics and more on the spread of the virus through West Africa.

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‘People were just buried with sticks for markers’: Mariama Jalloh despairs of finding her father’s grave on arrival at the overgrown burial site for Ebola victims in the southern city of Bo.Photo: Hazel Healy

Where my father lies

Mariama B Jalloh’s quest to find her father’s grave.

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Tamba and Mamie Lebbi on the porch of their home in Sokoma village.Photo: Laurence Ivil

For better or worse

Mamie Lebbi, the first woman to test positive for Ebola, describes how she survived in the bush with her husband’s help.

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Photo by Kwan Kew Lai

Love without touch

Bankolay Turay’s story of student romance on ice.

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Colonel Qadafi and the Tripoli Boys at the barracks in Moa Wharf.Photo: Paul Myles

'These are the boys who fought Ebola!'

Gangsters turned mobilizers, the Tripoli Boys kicked Ebola out of their neighbourhood. Amjata Bayoh and Mohamed S Camara find out what happened next.

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’Obstetric fistula stops with me.’ Elizabeth Katta stands with Satta, a girl from her self-help group. Four of its members fell pregnant during Ebola.Photo: Paul Myles

'I speak for the girls'

Elizabeth Katta talks about the lingering impacts of teenage pregnancy, which spiked during Ebola.

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Serah Tomba with Satta and Paul,  two of the orphans she is raising since Ebola. A neighbour’s child looks on. Photo: Hazel Healy

'Everything is on my shoulders'

Serah Tomba went from being a student to sole carer of seven orphans.

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Indigenous women in Peru still fear repercussions as they seek justice for the forced sterilizations they suffered two decades ago.Photo: Roxana Olivera

Against their will

Roxana Olivera meets indigenous women in Peru who are still waiting for justice, two decades after being forcibly sterilized.

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In a world where transnationals have more clout than many countries, the David and Goliath story has been turned on its head and power rests with companies.

Illustration: Fanatic Studio/Alamy Stock Photo

Big Davids, small Goliaths

How new trade deals – and Investor-State Dispute Settlements in particular – are giving more power to companies to sue countries for lost profits.

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Web exclusives

Mongolian herder Doljin Byambasurengiin lost more than 200 livestock to this year’s winter disaster.Photo: Madoka Ikegami

Mongolia’s dzud disaster

Plunging temperatures test the survival skills of the country’s nomadic herders, as this photo essay by Madoka Ikegami shows.

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Mr. Chak Kineesee, Program and Outreach Director at the Mekong School for Local Knowledge.Photo: © Gary Wocker

The Mekong River is not for sale!

The landscape, and the local peoples’ livelihood, have irrevocably changed, Gary Wockner reports in this photo essay.

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Doctors working at Connaught Hospital, Freetown, Sierra Leone. This hospital was on the frontline of the Ebola epidemic when it hit in Freetown.Photo by Simon Davis/DFID

Why did the market fail to produce an Ebola vaccine?

Mustapha Dumbaya lost 47 relatives in the outbreak. He explores why dysfunctional R&D is letting down those people who need it most.

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Blogs

Presidential candidate Rodrigo 'Digong' Duterte talks to the media before casting his vote at a polling precinct for national elections at Daniel Aguinaldo National High School in Davao city in southern Philippines, 9 May 2016.Photo: Reuters/Erik De Castro

Philippines’ Duterte threatens assassination of journalists

Human rights and journalism organizations have responded but the incoming president is dismissive of their concerns, reports Iris C. Gonzales.

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A pedestrian walks past the Polish Social and Cultural Association after graffiti was painted on the side of the building calling on Poles to leave the United Kingdom, in Hammersmith, London, Britain 27 June, 2016.© REUTERS/Neil Hall

What now for progressives in a post Brexit world?

Britain’s EU referendum has unleashed a complex set of crises and challenges. Vanessa Baird tries to look ahead.

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Opinion

Photo: Jon Cartwright

Men and feminism: the Smurthwaite Deal

Kate Smurthwaite has an idea for how men can truly be feminist.

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Photo: The All-Nite Images under a CC Licence

The ‘Fight for $15’ dreams big – and wins

Mark Engler hails a significant victory for workers in the US.

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Agenda

Photo: Our Children's Trust

Reasons to be cheerful

Youth sue over climate; Jobs for refugees; Dam slams to a halt; King coal deposed.

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Regulars

Letters

EU referendum irrelevant; kick fossil fuels out of the arts; and Tasmania's tree threat.

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Illustration: Sarah John

The most forgotten

Ruby Diamonde travels to the bush in search of an answer to a difficult question.

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Country profile: Ecuador

Greg Wilpert reports on a country diverse in geography, politics and people.

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Open Window - Hug

José Antonio Rodríguez García from Mexico with ‘Hug’

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Only Planet cartoon

Only Planet cartoon

Marc Roberts' latest cartoon strip.

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Photo: Guillem Moreno

A word with Aziza Brahim

The Western Saharan singer and activist on Cuban solidarity, life as a refugee, and making her grandmother proud.

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Film, Book & Music Reviews

Mixed Media: Music

Mixed Media: Music

Une Meeles by Maarja Nuut; Thankful Villages Vol. 1 by Darren Hayman.

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Mixed Media: Films

Mixed Media: Films

Tale of Tales, directed by Matteo Garrone; Where to Invade Next, directed by Michael Moore; Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare), directed by Gianfranco Rosi.

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Mixed Media: Books

Mixed Media: Books

¡No Pasarán! Writings from the Spanish Civil War, compiled by Pete Ayrton; Islam Beyond the Violent Jihadis by Ziauddin Sardar; The New Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev; Today we drop bombs, tomorrow we build bridges by Peter Gill.

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