|
About Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone is a country on the West Coast of Africa. It’s capital, Freetown, is on the Atlantic coast. Guinea sits to the north and east and Liberia lies to the south. In population, it would be the size of the state of Washington - just under 6 million. Of course, that’s just an estimate because they haven't been able to do a census since before the civil war which left the country and its people in ruins.
Sierra Leone is the poorest country in the world
A study commissioned by the United Nations calculates a Human Development Index (HDI) for each of the world's countries. The HDI measures life expectancy, adult literacy, enrollment in schools and Gross Domestic Product per capita. In 2007, Sierra Leone was ranked 177th out of 177 countries. Seventy percent of the country lives in poverty; 70% are unemployed; 70% earn less than $1 a day.
The Infrastructure is in tatters
Eighty percent of the population has no clean drinking water. Electricity is a rare luxury. Most roads are impassable.
Health Care is abysmal.
 About 80% of health care facilities were destroyed during the war and have not been rebuilt. Sierra Leone has the worst record for prenatal care in the world. One woman in eight die during pregnancy or childbirth. That compares with 1 in 76 in the developing world and 1 in 8,000 in the developed world. If you’re a child, your odds are even worse: 16% of all children die before they reach their first birthday. More than four out of ten children die before they’re five.
 A Tale of Two Girls is the title of a 4-minute movie on the World Health Organization’s Web site. It follows and draws dramatic contrast between the lives of two baby girls - one born in Japan and one born in Sierra Leone. The life expectancy for the girl born in Japan is nearly 50 years longer than the girl born in Sierra Leone.
BACK TO TOP
|
