�鶹APP

Celebrations kick off in marking end of in a few hours.
�鶹APP� Umaru Fofana (@UmaruFofana)

November 7, 2015 is a date that will be etched on the minds of the people of Sierra Leone �鶹APP� the day when the declared the country free of Ebola.

The outbreak caused more than 11,000 deaths across West Africa and the shutdown of Sierra Leone�鶹APP�s schools for nine months, leaving 1.8 million students missing out on education.

Reporting from the front line for American radio station NPR, the BBC and other news outlets, freelance journalist and dad-of-four Umaru Fofana knows all too well the devastation the health crisis has caused in his beloved country.

His selfless efforts to tell the heartbreaking story and issues surrounding Ebola to the world were recognised when he recently received a prestigious radio accolade by winning a .

Through the crisis, Umaru lost friends and witnessed how terrified residents threw food to two children orphaned by Ebola because they were too scared to go near them �鶹APP� all because of the virus which he says �鶹APP�thrives on love and empathy�鶹APP� due to its contagious nature.

One year on from the outbreak that killed people 3955 in Sierra Leone and ripped apart families and communities, the country is slowly getting back on its feet. The WHO announcement followed confirmation that 42 days had passed without any new Ebola cases.

Umaru Fofana in Sierra Leone: �鶹APP�There are monumental challenges�鶹APP�

However, Umaru believes more needs to be done to help Sierra Leone and says healing the scars of the outbreak in an already struggling country is not a simple task.

He said: �鶹APP�I am very hopeful that this is the end of the current outbreak in Sierra Leone. However, the challenges that lie ahead are so monumental that there could be pockets of the outbreak remerging in the near future.

�鶹APP�With the eyes of big powers and foreign NGOs having shifted to other trouble spots around the world, Sierra Leone is not yet out of the woods. Its healthcare system, which even in the best of times was largely dysfunctional, needs a complete overhaul.

�鶹APP�That cannot be done if corruption remains as endemic as it is at the moment.

�鶹APP�The agony of those who recovered from the disease �鶹APP� the so-called Survivors �鶹APP� continues with health and emotional complications emerging largely unattended. Children orphaned by Ebola and women who were widowed by the virus are shunned by society and neglected by the authorities.�鶹APP�

The survivors of the virus have been bearing the brunt of the cruel disease which has left many children without parents. Two vivid memories stick in Umaru�鶹APP�s mind.

Sierra Leone student gets her temperature checked when secondary school in Kenema reopened Picture: UNICEF/Bindra

He said: �鶹APP�I saw a child �鶹APP� possibly five years old �鶹APP� in a treatment centre in the eastern town of Kenema inside an Ebola treatment ward.

�鶹APP�As he walked away from my cameraman and me towards his bed it seemed he was going to the gallows. I returned home, hugged my two-year-old daughter and flashes of the boy returned.

�鶹APP�I also saw two children inside a derelict building in Devil Hole, just outside Freetown. They had lost their parents to the virus and had gone days without an ambulance to pick them up despite persistent calls to the toll-free number.

�鶹APP�The neighbours were scared to come anywhere close to them. In one instance a good neighbour flung food at them. Horrendous.

�鶹APP�Just two of the many difficult times I witnessed for children �鶹APP� but also I witnessed entire families being decimated by a virus that thrives on love and empathy.�鶹APP�

During the crisis, 1.8 million children were shut out of their schools until classes began to reopen in April. The disease claimed the lives of 945 school students and 181 teachers.

In December last year, a report by the  and A World at School in a bid to sustain the education of five million students affected by Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

A health worker advises resident in Kailahun district during Ebola outbreak Picture: UNICEF/Douglas

Since the reopening of schools, students have been praised for following in a bid to keep schools free from the deadly virus.

Concerned for their own children�鶹APP�s safety, Umaru and his wife kept them at home and self-taught them as best as they could. He said: �鶹APP�I have four children for whom education was very challenging during the Ebola outbreak.

�鶹APP�Like other kids across the country their education ground to a halt. Schools were closed.

�鶹APP�First it was children in Kailahun District where the virus had started in the country who were told to stay at home. This is an area which even in the best of times is badly neglected with education at a very low ebb.

�鶹APP�Then children in the rest of the country followed as the virus snaked its tail throughout Sierra Leone. My children also stayed at home as my wife and I took turns to teach them.

�鶹APP�We thought of bringing in a teacher to teach them at home but that in itself was exposing them to risks. It was very hard to keep them with books outside school and not on a planned holiday.�鶹APP�

A health worker at an Ebola treatment centre outside Kenema in 2014 Picture: Anna Jeffreys/IRIN

The first to go to school in his family, Umaru knows too well the value of education.

He said: �鶹APP�I struggled to get an education. Neither of my parents went to school. Despite that, or maybe because of it, my mum always wanted me to become educated.

�鶹APP�I remember how she would go out of her way �鶹APP� sell her favourite  clothes �鶹APP� to pay my fees and prepare food for me when I went to secondary  school and had to leave my birthplace �鶹APP� Bumpeh �鶹APP� which only had primary schools.

�鶹APP�A friend paid for my school-leaving exams when my parents couldn�鶹APP�t afford it. And I mined for diamonds and hawked to be able to raise my university fees. That was the typical life of most of my peers �鶹APP� and many had to drop out of school. It remains largely so for most even up to today.

�鶹APP�To say education is the key to everything in a country like Sierra Leone is an understatement. Learning �鶹APP� from primary to tertiary (post-secondary education) �鶹APP� has taken a nosedive and this predated the Ebola outbreak.�鶹APP�

More than 230,000 children of primary school age were already not enrolled before the disease took hold, according to UNICEF�鶹APP�s Sierra Leone Country Status Report 2013.

Sierra Leone girls return to St Joseph�鶹APP�s Secondary in Freetown in April Picture: UNICEF/Irwin

The journalist added: �鶹APP�With Ebola we need to build the health sector and the doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers need to be trained �鶹APP� that�鶹APP�s education. This country needs engineers and scientists who are to be trained in schools and colleges with hardly any schools having a proper science laboratory. I would say EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION before anything else.�鶹APP�

Speaking about receiving the Peabody Award for his Ebola reports for NPR, Umaru said: �鶹APP�It gives me a bitter-sweet feeling. The misery I reported on �鶹APP� the needless deaths of thousands of my compatriots and the attendant consequences on those who survived the virus are an everlasting presence on my mind.

�鶹APP�But I am also happy that the risks I exposed myself and my family to �鶹APP� to be able to bring the story out to gain world attention for intervention �鶹APP� paid off. The world came and my effort is being recognised. I feel truly humbled that the NPR team I was a part of was recognised this much.�鶹APP�

After the announcement about the end of the Ebola outbreak, Dr Anders Nordström, World Health Organisation Representative in Sierra Leone, said today: �鶹APP�We now have a unique opportunity to support Sierra Leone to build a strong and resilient public health system ready to detect and respond to the next outbreak of disease, or any other public health threat.�鶹APP�

Liberia was declared Ebola-free in September but in Guinea four new cases have been recorded in the past two weeks.