Peace Corps Volunteer Experiences with RHCI

Riley and Nick

My name is Riley DeLude and I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer that served in Sierra Leone from June 2019 to March 2020, at which point we were evacuated due to the Covid-19 pandemic. My partner, Nick Gaines, and I applied to the Peace Corps as a couple, and he was an Education Volunteer, while I was a Public Health Volunteer.

As a Public Health Volunteer, I was based out of the Tikonko Community Health Center (CHC), essentially a small government-run clinic that serves 42 villages. Serving such a large population, this was a very busy CHC. Working there Monday through Friday, I saw a lot! My primary focus was providing public health education through health talks, patient counseling, and staff education, although I often took on whatever supportive tasks were needed.

While working at the CHC, I quickly began learning about this organization locals were calling
“Mbao-Mi”, the local name given to the Birth Waiting Home RHCI opened in Tikonko. During antenatal care clinic days, I could see the excitement on women’s faces when they received their referral from the CHC’s Midwives to go stay at Mbao-Mi Birth Waiting Home. They would celebrate because staying at Mbao-Mi meant they were close by the CHC. They knew they would not have to walk miles and miles to the CHC in the heat while in labor, or ride on the back of a motorbike on extremely bumpy unpaved roads while having contractions, or worse, give birth alone or without any trained help. Traveling from home to the CHC while in labor was not always an option, such as during the darkness of night or during a rainstorm. Staying at Mbao-Mi, they felt safer. They knew they were close to care and that RHCI would drive them to the CHC for delivery. Mbao-Mi Birth Waiting Home also provides food for the pregnant women, which may not sound as significant to you as it is. Cooking in rural Sierra Leone takes a significant amount of time and effort, and many pregnant women receiving antenatal care at the clinic were malnourished.

RHCI also greatly increased access to antenatal care through their support of outreach clinics to more distant villages. These outreach clinics have been crucial for increasing access to antenatal care in the area, as many women couldn’t consistently travel to the CHC for check-up antenatal care visits due to the distance. Having gone along on these outreach clinics, I know how grateful the patients are that care is becoming more accessible to them.

In January of 2020, I got to meet some of the RHCI team from Minnesota that came to Tikonko to visit. I was eager to learn more about their programming and plans for the future, as I was brainstorming my own plans for supporting the CHC at the time. The CHC faces many obstacles and challenges, and RHCI has been very creative with coming up with solutions to these
challenges as they promote maternal and child health in Sierra Leone.

After seeing the incredible impact RHCI has been making firsthand, Nick and I stayed in touch with RHCI and planned a visit back to Tikonko for the same time as them, in February of 2023. In addition to visiting our friends and former neighbors in Tikonko, we wanted to see how RHCI programming has progressed and if there was anything we could do to support RHCI and its mission.

Trust me when I say, RHCI is saving the lives of mothers in Sierra Leone. I want you to know that the impact RHCI is making is real, and I continue to be amazed and grateful to all of the RHCI board, staff, and supporters, for dedicating yourselves to such an important cause.

Lastly, when people ask me what’s one thing I would want to share with people back home about Tikonko, Sierra Leone, I always say that the people there are incredibly welcoming, warm, and generous. In Mende, the tribal language spoken in Tikonko, the word for stranger literally translates to “give chicken”, and a common joke is that it’s because they love welcoming strangers in with open arms and feeding them chicken. Our first night in Tikonko, Nick and I were in fact gifted some fried chicken.