A diabetic centre for Liberians

Liberia is located on the West Coast of Africa and is the oldest republic in the continent. It has a population of 5,305,117.

Crisis in Liberia

Civil wars took place in the 1990s, which claimed many lives. From 1989 to 2003 around 200,000 to 250,000 Liberians died, and by 2003, around one million others had been displaced into refugee camps in neighboring countries. Conditions in Liberia were poor prior to the civil war, and they deteriorated further after years of war and unrest. These and other issues facing Liberia were exacerbated in 2014 by the deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus disease that also devastated the neighboring countries of Guinea and Sierra Leone.

Health care

The toll of the war and virus pandemic on the civilian population and the economy was devastating. Liberia is now the fourth poorest country in the world, with about 85 percent of Liberians living below the poverty line. Liberia’s health system remains fragile, and this has been further strained by the COVID-19 pandemic with significant disruption in access to and utilization of essential health services. The health facility density ratio of Liberia is 2.1 per 10,000 people, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommendation is 44.5 per 10,000 population. Because of these problems, many people still do not have access to diagnostics, medicines and monitoring devices that can help with healthcare management.

Diabetes in Liberia

According to the latest WHO data, diabetes mellitus deaths in Liberia reached 650 or 1.93% of total deaths, these are just the informatie that are verified, most cases go unnoticed. It’s reported by the International Diabetes Federation that 2.1% of the population has diabetes, of which 57.6% has undiagnosed diabetes. Diabetes-related deaths in people under 60 year is 2.4%. This number continues to grow. According to research, Liberia is projected to experience the largest rise in the prevalence of diabetes, with over 100% growth from 2014 to 2030.

My team and I created a foodforest one and a half year ago because of the lack of diversity of fruit and vegetable in the market. At this point we have about 21 different spiecies of fruit trees growing on an 8 acre farm in Monrovia, Fendall, check on instagram for more info on our farm; @dogard_farm. During this research we realised that the lack of food diveristy has created serious health problems for Liberians, diabetes being the major one. During our reseach in the hospitals we observed that most of the hospitals/clinics did not have the right materials and/or medication to treat the desease, which is taking the life of many Liberians every year. Because of this we want to build a diabetic center in the middel of the farm. This way we can help treat this epidemic and also inform our fellow Liberians about the right dietary program to prevent diabetes. We are praying you help us build a diabetic centre that will help us fight this epidemic.

Once we have raised enough money, we will start a YouTube channel where everyone can watch our progress weekly.