Yahoo Lifestyle Jo Dunlop And Ebola's Unsung Heroes
Jo Dunlop with Ebola nurse Nancy. Photo: Jo Dunlop
When Jo Dunlop started her fashion blog, Freetown Fashpack, in 2012, she couldn’t have known it would eventually document one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.
Not long after arriving in the Sierra Leonean capital of Freetown in 2011 to work as a UNICEF volunteer, the Sydneysider began recording the vivid street style of Freetown’s residents. “It’s such a vibrant country and the way that people express themselves through their clothes is fantastic and wonderful,” she enthuses.
But when the deadly Ebola virus started to wreak havoc in the West African nation in March 2014, killing thousands, Dunlop (who now works in communications at a Freetown hospital) decided to use her blog to record the horrors and heroism she was witnessing on a daily basis.
“There are some amazing foreign doctors working here, but they’ve chosen to be here,” says Dunlop, “the Sierra Leoneans haven’t. They’re the real heroes.” Heroes like the Sierra Leonean nurses, ward cleaners and burial workers who do the thankless jobs that are crucial in stopping the spread of the disease.
One blog post chronicled the tale of Bilikisu, a nurse who caught Ebola from her brother. She survived, though 17 of her relatives didn’t, and now works as a nurse at the hospital with Dunlop. Another post featured Juliana, 19, an Ebola survivor who lost her husband and mother to the disease. She now runs a survivors’ union.
It’s women, says Dunlop, who have been worst hit by the crisis. Ebola has affected women at vastly higher rates than men – in some areas, 75 per cent of casualties have been female, due to the culturally ingrained gender roles of women as caregivers at home and in hospitals.
Dunlop has seen many Ebola sufferers survive their ordeal – only to be cast out of their communities. “The survivors should be heroes, but in reality they’re stigmatised, ridiculed and alienated.” In Sierra Leone, survivors can be thrown out of their homes, lose their jobs and have their belongings burnt. “It’s crazy, because they have a level of immunity,” says Dunlop. “They’re valuable in the hospitals [as they can more safely touch people with Ebola].”
Dunlop says she won’t leave Freetown until the World Health Organization announces the nation to
be Ebola-free. “[That] will be an incredible moment,” she says. Until then, she will keep using her blog to share the stories of Freetown’s unsung heroes. “The spirit of Sierra Leoneans hasn’t been broken,” she says.
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