Dorcas Kamanda, Founder	NarSarah Clinic
Solar Power Nerve Center

NarSarah Clinic

A Sierra Leonean Community
Health Care Initiative

FWA supports NarSarah Clinic a community-based health care service in Kabala, in Sierra Leone’s northern Koinadugu District. Staffed by local nurses who are also trusted community leaders, NarSarah is also a leader in community development, with agricultural and business initiatives empower women and generate revenue for health care. They partner with Radio BIntumani,93.7 FM to broadcast health care education programs. During the Ebola crisis they teamed up with international health organizations to provide life-saving information to the communities they serve in Koinadugu District.

Dorcas Kamanda, the founder of NarSarah, is a Sierra Leonean nurse based in the United States. She launched NarSarah Clinic in response to her first post-civil war visit to Kabala in 2002. With Kabala’s infrastructure in shambles after the war, and the nearest hospital 85 miles away, Kabala residents asked Dorcas to help restore basic community health care services in a community that grapples with challenges faced throughout Sierra Leone, where:
• 80% of the population lives in poverty
• There are 3 doctors for every 100,000 people
• 70% of the people are illiterate
• 1 in 8 women die from complications in childbirth
• 1 in 5 children will die before their 5th birthday
• 60% of the people do not have access to basic health care services.

Dorcas establishing NarSarah Clinic in a one room house, and vowed mobilize the resources needed to make it viable and then grow. She didn’t have to go far for help: Her brother, “Peacemaker” Kargbo and sister, Finah Kargbo, jumped at the opportunity to serve their community and became trained nurses. Dorcas formed a non-profit organization, SEED, Inc. (Salone Enabling and Empowering Development) to raise awareness and funds for medical supplies and infrastructure. Driven by her vision and leadership, SEED, Inc. is striving to make NarSarah a self-sustaining clinic that also helps reduce poverty in Koinadugu.

FWA has assisted NarSarah Clinic in three ways:
• motorcycles for nurses for quick emergency response and accessibility to remote villages
• installation of solar electricity and hot water systems
• fostering the partnership with Radio Bintumani and the Independent Radio Network for health care programming.