PROGRAMS

We work with global supporters and the local communities together to improve health care quality and access, to provide a home for expectant mothers, to operate a children's health and malnutrition program, and to grow sustainable food.

Rural Health Redevelopment

With approval from the Bo District Medical Office, RHCI partners with communities in the Tikonko Chiefdom to:

  • Operate Mobile Outreach Clinics in 16 villages
  • Provide medical training for community health workers, nurses and midwives
  • Partner with local health centers to provide medical supplies through shipments of donated medical and baby suppliies
  • Provide transportation for patients to health care facilities
  • Employ 23 local Sierra Leone full-time staff, and over 100 part-time staff who receive stipends for their work with RHCI

Birth Waiting Homes

RHCI operates two Birth Waiting Homes located in Tikonko and Gondama, providing expectant near-term mothers with:

  • Antenatal care including ultrasound
  • Postnatal and newborn health care
  • Food, laundry, housekeeping, and security
  • Transportation to health care facilities for childbirth
  • Support for hospital care for Obstetric emergencies and for pregnant women who are high risk
  • Health education on hygiene, nutrition, breastfeeding and family planning/birth spacing.
  • Instruction on farming with hands-on learning
  • Social activities

In 2025, RHCI trained over 100 Community Health Workers from Tikonko Chiefdom in topics including malnutrition, newborn care, malaria, immunizations and more.

Children’s Health Program

In partnership with the Tikonko and Gondama Community Health Centers and the Kassama and Sembehun Tarbema Maternal Child Health Posts, RHCI provides health care and nutritional services to children including:

  • Diagnosing and treating malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhea, and other common illnesses
  • Improving access to immunizations including the new Malaria vaccine, to children in over 100 villages
  • Transporting and paying for hospital care in Bo for critically ill children
  • Providing evaluation and treatment for malnourished children in our outreach clinics, including supplemental feedings and caregiver education
  • Expansion of services through age ten
  • Newborn Home visits to provide preventive care for newborns and their mothers, for up to 9 months
  • Expansion of malaria services including access to ITNs (insecticide treated nets), education, prevention, testing and treatment at outreach clinics and in remote villages.
  • Helping Babies Breathe and Essential Newborn Care training for 23 health care workers including nurses

Umu Shour, a Sierra Leone University educated nutritionist, operates RHCI's children's malnutrition program. Using WHO and Sierra Leone guidelines, Umu and the RHCI staff treat over 200 children per year, using RUTF (Ready to Use Therapeutic Food including Plumpynut and Bennimix) and caregiver education. In 2025, 2618 malnutrition visits took place with child visits every 2 weeks at Outreach Clinics.

Sustainable Food & Agriculture

Widespread food insecurity promotes malnutrition, poor health, and mortality. RHCI addresses this challenge in two ways:

  • Cultivating a sustainable agricultural plot that provides staff and patients with a fresh and consistent food supply
  • Working with local farmer-based organizations and an agriculture specialist  to increase consistent community-wide food sourcing particularly during the “hunger” season