Unable to ignore the Ebola crisis in neighbouring Sierra Leone,
Ghana-based remittances service Beam has launched a donations hub to
raise funds for charities fighting the outbreak.
Launched on Monday,
Bitcoin Against Ebola
is a non-profit initiative that aims to reduce the percentage of
charitable donations lost to fees in fiat currency money transfers.
The website will effectively act as a conduit for people in other
parts of the world to send donations via bitcoin to two registered
NGOs working in Sierra Leone:
Sierra Leone Liberty Group and
LunchBoxGift. It is also possible to remit money to family or friends affected by the crisis.
Beam's CEO Nikunj Handa told CoinDesk:
"We just couldn’t stand the fact that over 15% of the
money [people] were sending to Sierra Leone to help their country was
being spent on transaction fees."
Minimising transaction fees
Sending money to the charity of your choice is a simple affair. After
registering on the Bitcoin Against Ebola website and entering basic ID
details, a payments page allows the user to select from Beam's supported
charities or choose another by entering its name and Africell, Airtel
or Comium telephone number.
Then it is merely matter of specifying the amount to send and
scanning a QR code into your bitcoin wallet. Transactions are listed in
your account immediately after sending and an email notification will be
sent when the donation has arrived with the charity.
To get the funds to people on the ground, Beam has partnered with
Splash Mobile Money, Sierra Leone’s largest mobile money provider. Nikunj said transaction fees cost just 2% – half going to Beam, half to Splash.
"This is necessary to cover certain operational costs," Nikunj said.
"The recipients do not have to pay any extra money to cash out the
money. 2% is the entire cost of getting cash to Sierra Leone ... Our
exchange rate and lack of fixed fee is simply unbeatable."
Donations can be as low as $1, and the charities receive the funds in minutes, according to the CEO, who stressed:
"This is a non-profit initiative and we do not make any money out of this."
Fighting the virus
While
Ebola
has not yet reached Ghana, the neighbouring countries of Sierra Leone,
Liberia and Guinea have suffered greatly from the deadly virus.
Official estimates say almost 5,000 people have died, but the actual count is suspected to be much higher.
"Entire villages have been wiped out by the disease," said Nikunj.
While the international effort to contain the outbreak and help those in afflicted regions is growing, the UN has said it still
does not have the resources to contain the disease.
The charities supported by Beam are working on a much smaller scale
than major organisations. However, Nikunj indicated that after
interacting with NGOs in Sierra Leone, he found that small efforts in
education and provision of supplies can also make a big difference.
He explained:
"There is a lack of awareness on how the disease is
spread. Some people even believe that the disease is 'fake' and this is a
plot by the government against them. Due to this, there is a need for
people on the ground in these countries educate the public on Ebola and
how it can be prevented."
One of Beam's featured charities, Sierra Leone Liberty Group, has
been combatting this ignorance by promoting effective hygiene amongst
local populations. Since the disease is highly contagious and easily
transmitted through contact with body fluids like sweat and saliva,
SLLG has also been discouraging people from shaking hands and sharing
food.
Providing essential resources
Another issue for those fighting the disease or living in hard-hit
areas is that food and medicines have to be delivered to patients and
healthcare workers.
Making the issue even more complex, governments often quarantine
affected homes and sometimes issue lockdowns of entire cities
for days to prevent the spread of Ebola.
Under these restrictions, it is extremely difficult for people to
gain access to food and other supplies, and NGOs play a critical role in
providing essential resources before a lockdown begins.
Beam's second supported charity, LunchBoxGift provides freshly cooked
lunches to these people, with each meal costing just £1 ($1.60).
LunchBoxGift is aiming to provide 50,000 hot meals to hospitalised
patients and frontline healthcare workers in Ebola treatment
centres over the next three months. This, the charity says, is
particularly necessary because the isolation of patients means that
their families cannot get food to them in the usual way.
Ebola virus image via CDC/Cynthia Goldsmith/Wikipedia. Charity workers image via LunchBoxGift
The
Chairman of ECOWAS, President John Dramani Mahama, has bemoaned the
situation where families are rejecting children orphaned by the Ebola
virus disease in countries affected by the epidemic.
He said in Liberia, for example, where more than 2000 new orphans had
been recorded, families were rejecting the children while orphanages
had also declared them unwelcome because of the stigma attached to the
disease.
Addressing the opening session of a two-day
extraordinary summit of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and
Government on Ebola in Accra yesterday, President Mahama said adults who
had survived the disease were also unable to return to their homes
because of the fear of infecting others with the virus.
Mr Mahama
said the picture was symptomatic of the havoc the disease was wreaking
in the three most affected countries in West Africa.
The summit focused mainly on Ebola, but the West African leaders also discussed the political situation in Burkina Faso.
Need for a shift
Although
statistics were crucial in addressing situations such as the Ebola
disease, Mr Mahama said, the time had come for a shift of emphasis to
taking a critical look at the suffering that was written on the faces of
victims.
The World Health Organisation has reported for instance that cases of Ebola have reached 13,567 with more than 4,000 deaths.
But,
the ECOWAS Chairman said, "we have become too familiar with these
figures while very little emphasis is placed on the terrible pain and
agony patients go through”.
He stated that tackling the pain and
agony associated with the disease would provide strong grounds for the
world to appreciate how crucial it was to assist the affected nations to
deal with the epidemic.
"We must talk about Ebola not simply from the head but also from the heart," he added.
Pandemic breaks barriers
Pandemics,
he said, were not peculiar to any specific country, explaining that
"when it comes to the occurrence of a pandemic, every nation is
vulnerable".
He said giving the fact that Ebola had not only
crossed borders but even oceans to affect countries was a testimony to
the fact that everyone was at risk.
The United States and Spain, which are advanced nations, have both recorded cases.
Mr Mahama expressed satisfaction about improvement in global response to the disease but indicated that more needed to be done.
He said in the discussion of Ebola, too much premium was placed on tangible items given out to victims.
He, however, said the effects of Ebola were far-reaching and that there were intangibles that also needed to be addressed.
Crumbling economies
The
ECOWAS Chairman stated that Ebola was threatening to destroy the
economies of the three countries and warned of its ramifications on
other West Africa countries, since the economies of the countries in the
sub-region were connected.
The President of the ECOWAS
Commission, Mr Desire Kadre Ouedraogo, gave an assurance that the
commission would not relent until Ebola was defeated.
He urged
West African countries that were yet to redeem their pledges to the
ECOWAS Ebola Fund to do so without any further delay.
The United
Nations Secretary General's special representative to West Africa, Dr
Mohammed Ibn Chambas, who read a statement from his boss, Mr Ban
Ki-moon, commended President Mahama for the tremendous work he was doing
in the fight against Ebola.
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/news/politics/33398-don-t-reject-ebola-orphans-president-mahama.html#sthash.Qe4q8GvA.dpuf
The
Chairman of ECOWAS, President John Dramani Mahama, has bemoaned the
situation where families are rejecting children orphaned by the Ebola
virus disease in countries affected by the epidemic.
He said in Liberia, for example, where more than 2000 new orphans had
been recorded, families were rejecting the children while orphanages
had also declared them unwelcome because of the stigma attached to the
disease.
Addressing the opening session of a two-day
extraordinary summit of ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and
Government on Ebola in Accra yesterday, President Mahama said adults who
had survived the disease were also unable to return to their homes
because of the fear of infecting others with the virus.
Mr Mahama
said the picture was symptomatic of the havoc the disease was wreaking
in the three most affected countries in West Africa.
The summit focused mainly on Ebola, but the West African leaders also discussed the political situation in Burkina Faso.
Need for a shift
Although
statistics were crucial in addressing situations such as the Ebola
disease, Mr Mahama said, the time had come for a shift of emphasis to
taking a critical look at the suffering that was written on the faces of
victims.
The World Health Organisation has reported for instance that cases of Ebola have reached 13,567 with more than 4,000 deaths.
But,
the ECOWAS Chairman said, "we have become too familiar with these
figures while very little emphasis is placed on the terrible pain and
agony patients go through”.
He stated that tackling the pain and
agony associated with the disease would provide strong grounds for the
world to appreciate how crucial it was to assist the affected nations to
deal with the epidemic.
"We must talk about Ebola not simply from the head but also from the heart," he added.
Pandemic breaks barriers
Pandemics,
he said, were not peculiar to any specific country, explaining that
"when it comes to the occurrence of a pandemic, every nation is
vulnerable".
He said giving the fact that Ebola had not only
crossed borders but even oceans to affect countries was a testimony to
the fact that everyone was at risk.
The United States and Spain, which are advanced nations, have both recorded cases.
Mr Mahama expressed satisfaction about improvement in global response to the disease but indicated that more needed to be done.
He said in the discussion of Ebola, too much premium was placed on tangible items given out to victims.
He, however, said the effects of Ebola were far-reaching and that there were intangibles that also needed to be addressed.
Crumbling economies
The
ECOWAS Chairman stated that Ebola was threatening to destroy the
economies of the three countries and warned of its ramifications on
other West Africa countries, since the economies of the countries in the
sub-region were connected.
The President of the ECOWAS
Commission, Mr Desire Kadre Ouedraogo, gave an assurance that the
commission would not relent until Ebola was defeated.
He urged
West African countries that were yet to redeem their pledges to the
ECOWAS Ebola Fund to do so without any further delay.
The United
Nations Secretary General's special representative to West Africa, Dr
Mohammed Ibn Chambas, who read a statement from his boss, Mr Ban
Ki-moon, commended President Mahama for the tremendous work he was doing
in the fight against Ebola.
- See more at: http://graphic.com.gh/news/politics/33398-don-t-reject-ebola-orphans-president-mahama.html#sthash.Qe4q8GvA.dpuf
The
World Health Organization has named Ghana among 15 countries it will
focus its attention on, to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola
disease.
This was after the European Union (EU) announced a review of its
entry policies, and the disease was reported in the last untouched area
of Sierra Leone.
The rest of the countries on the WHO’s list are Ivory Coast,
Guinea Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, DR
Congo, Gambia,Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan and Togo.
In a statement, the WHO’s Global Director, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall said,
“the objective is to stop the transmission from occurring in these
countries. They may not have a case but after one case we don’t want
more, these countries need to be better prepared.”
She
added that, “this week we will cross 9,000 cases of Ebola and 4,500
deaths. The outbreak continues to hit health workers hard. So far 427
health care workers have been infected with Ebola and 236 - See more at:
http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/10/17/ebola-ghana-named-in-who-priority-list/#sthash.UtPAnKNt.dpuf
The
World Health Organization has named Ghana among 15 countries it will
focus its attention on, to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola
disease.
This was after the European Union (EU) announced a review of its
entry policies, and the disease was reported in the last untouched area
of Sierra Leone.
The rest of the countries on the WHO’s list are Ivory Coast,
Guinea Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, DR
Congo, Gambia,Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan and Togo.
In a statement, the WHO’s Global Director, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall said,
“the objective is to stop the transmission from occurring in these
countries. They may not have a case but after one case we don’t want
more, these countries need to be better prepared.”
She
added that, “this week we will cross 9,000 cases of Ebola and 4,500
deaths. The outbreak continues to hit health workers hard. So far 427
health care workers have been infected with Ebola and 236 have died.”
Meanwhile Senegal and Nigeria are expected to be declared Ebola-free within a few days, despite having had the disease there.
Most of the affected countries have been struggling to contain the
virus, but these two countries [Nigeria and Senegal] have done so
successfully.
The EU also announced that it was reviewing its screening controls for airline passengers leaving West Africa.
After an emergency meeting of EU health ministers, EU health chief
Tonio Borg said the WHO and the EU would look into “conflicting reports”
about whether the screening in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea was good
enough.
It said countries with the largest probability of seeing the arrival
of the Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) cases before the end of October 2014,
are Ghana, United States, France, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.
The report was compiled before Senegal, Nigeria and the United States
of America (USA) recorded any case and was published on October 6,
2014.
A similar report by the Oxford University in United Kingdom also
predicted that Ghana and the 14 other countries in Africa are at risk of
animal-to-human transmission of Ebola by virtue of their geography.
-
By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom/citifmonline.com/Ghana
- See more at: http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/10/17/ebola-ghana-named-in-who-priority-list/#sthash.UtPAnKNt.dpuf
The
World Health Organization has named Ghana among 15 countries it will
focus its attention on, to prevent the spread of the deadly Ebola
disease.
This was after the European Union (EU) announced a review of its
entry policies, and the disease was reported in the last untouched area
of Sierra Leone.
The rest of the countries on the WHO’s list are Ivory Coast,
Guinea Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, CAR, DR
Congo, Gambia,Mauritania, Nigeria, South Sudan and Togo.
In a statement, the WHO’s Global Director, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall said,
“the objective is to stop the transmission from occurring in these
countries. They may not have a case but after one case we don’t want
more, these countries need to be better prepared.”
She
added that, “this week we will cross 9,000 cases of Ebola and 4,500
deaths. The outbreak continues to hit health workers hard. So far 427
health care workers have been infected with Ebola and 236 have died.”
Meanwhile Senegal and Nigeria are expected to be declared Ebola-free within a few days, despite having had the disease there.
Most of the affected countries have been struggling to contain the
virus, but these two countries [Nigeria and Senegal] have done so
successfully.
The EU also announced that it was reviewing its screening controls for airline passengers leaving West Africa.
After an emergency meeting of EU health ministers, EU health chief
Tonio Borg said the WHO and the EU would look into “conflicting reports”
about whether the screening in Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea was good
enough.
It said countries with the largest probability of seeing the arrival
of the Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) cases before the end of October 2014,
are Ghana, United States, France, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire.
The report was compiled before Senegal, Nigeria and the United States
of America (USA) recorded any case and was published on October 6,
2014.
A similar report by the Oxford University in United Kingdom also
predicted that Ghana and the 14 other countries in Africa are at risk of
animal-to-human transmission of Ebola by virtue of their geography.
-
By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom/citifmonline.com/Ghana
- See more at: http://www.citifmonline.com/2014/10/17/ebola-ghana-named-in-who-priority-list/#sthash.UtPAnKNt.dpuf
