OVER the next week, Facebook users across the globe will see a message at the top of their News Feeds with an option to donate to Save the Children’s Ebola relief efforts.
“This initiative provides an immediate, simple and desperately needed way to donate to the worst Ebola outbreak in history,” Save the Children CEO, Paul Ronalds, said.
“This ground-breaking partnership with Facebook gives us the chance to raise the funds we urgently need to turn the tide on Ebola and stop the disease in its tracks.”
Save the Children is working in Ebola-hit Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, where it is managing Ebola treatment and care centres, providing vital medical equipment, training health workers, and teaching prevention measures. The children’s aid agency has also just opened its first specialist Ebola Treatment Centre in Sierra Leone.
The 80-bed facility will diagnose and treat infected patients including children, and adds to existing efforts in Liberia where Save Children has opened a 70-bed Ebola treatment unit and is set to open a second unit later this year.
“We are making every effort to help stop this crisis spiraling further out of control. Save the Children teams are working flat out to halt Ebola’s deadly march across West Africa, but we desperately need more funds and additional personnel,” Mr Ronalds added.
”We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn’t spread further and become a long term global health crisis that we end up fighting for decades at large scale, like HIV or polio,” Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook, said.
All money raised through the Facebook initiative will go directly to charities working on the ground in West Africa, including Save the Children. To learn more about Save the Children’s Ebola response, please visit www.savethechildren.org.au/ebola
Source: Save the Children
