ND Unite to Fight Ebola, a campus group aimed at providing relief to West African communities devastated by the disease, has partnered with Hospital Sisters Mission Outreach of Springfield, Ill., to deliver supplies to the region. The group aims to raise money by Oct. 17 for a first shipment of medical supplies, and the effort will continue.
“As a global Notre Dame community, we have the ability to help our brothers and sisters in West Africa,” says Annette Ruth, who earned dual bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences and psychology in 2011 and a Master of Science in Global Health in 2012. “We are called to respond to the desperate and heartbreaking situation that has been created by the Ebola epidemic. We can save lives and reduce this suffering through monetary contributions to purchase and deliver life-saving medical supplies.”
Notre Dame ties to West Africa include extensive work by Catherine Bolten, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies whose book on her experiences in Sierra Leone was published in 2012. Yassah Lavelah, a registered nurse at a clinic that she founded with her mother near Monrovia, Liberia, participated in the Young African Leaders Initiative hosted by Notre Dame through the Mendoza College of Business and Initiative for Global Development on campus this summer. That contact led Katherine Taylor, the institute’s operations director, to launch the support effort, and she recruited Ruth to help organize the initiative as a volunteer.
“In spirit with its Catholic faith and service, the University of Notre Dame family can, and should, contribute to the call for help from our own people,” Taylor says.
To get more information, donate, and read stories about Notre Dame connections to West Africa and the Ebola crisis, visit at blogs.nd.edu/unite. The group has a Facebook page, www.facebook.com/NDUnite.