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Grassroots Social Media Campaign Aims To Raise $1 Million In The Ebola Fight

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If you’ve been following the Ebola crisis in West Africa for the last six months or so, you’ll have noticed that there weren’t many early individual efforts to raise money until recently. It's only been in the last few weeks, when Ebola touched the U.S. personally, that people started to worry – and take action. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have made huge pledges to help stop Ebola in West Africa, which has encouraged other (regular) people to do the same. Grassroots efforts have still been sluggish through all this – but they’re starting to pick up.

In late summer 2014, five people of Sierra Leonean descent started EndEbolaNow.com, a website designed to raise awareness and money for the fight against Ebola in West Africa. Nzinga Blake, the daughter of a Sierra Leonean former UN official; Stephanie Filo; Shalimar Zahra; Adetokumboh M'Cormack; and Irene Edwards launched the site and a PSA to educate Sierra Leoneans about the disease, how to reduce the odds of contracting it and to protect oneself if a family member has it. Mainly, as they stress in the PSA, it’s about helping spread awareness and safe practices, rather than fear.

Now, it's also become about raising awareness, and money, in the U.S. “People think the UN is taking care of the current crisis,” says Blake. “Yes and no. The UN is definitely doing their part, but there are also other organizations on the ground who are battling the crisis and need more help. It’s a grim crisis. Sierra Leone is still recovering from the war, and just starting to get back on its feet. The healthcare systems there are completely fractured.”

EndEbolaNow then teamed up with EMERGENCY USA and created a video challenge called #ShakeEbolaOff to raise money. EMERGENCY USA is a non-profit that currently runs the only Ebola treatment center near Sierra Leone’s capital city, Freetown, and is building another, larger facility in the same location by November.

#ShakeEbolaOff is a dance challenge, to get people moving, literally – and hopefully, figuratively, to donate money. Think the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge but with dancing: Film yourself dancing and then use social media to nominate your buddies to do the same and make a donation to EMERGENCY USA. The campaign is spreading across social media like Facebook and Twitter and picking up steam: Kevin Bacon, the Denver Broncos cheerleaders, and Gavin Houston are some of the celebrities who have taken up the dance challenge and donated money to EMERGENCY USA.

“For EMERGENCY USA,” says Executive Director Eric Talbert, “our existing supporters like the Skoll Foundation and board base of individual donors stepped up early on to support our Ebola response to help protect our brave staff. The challenge has been in obtaining new gifts from people for the first time. The #ShakeEbolaOff online dance challenge has helped inspire people, including Kevin Bacon, to give in this way, and we hope it continues. These funds are supporting of our Ebola Treatment Center in Sierra Leone, the first center near the capital of Freetown and our plans to open another larger 90-bed center by November.”

Money donated to EMERGENCY USA goes to buying protective gear for doctors and other health workers – a main concern for the organization is keeping the workers safe as they help sick patients – and medical supplies for the treatment center. “With EMERGENCY USA, our major concern is that health care officials are protected,” says Blake. “If you donate $50 or more, this buys protective gear for a healthcare worker. If doctors aren’t protected, workers aren’t trained properly, the cycle will just continue.” The initial goal is to raise $1 million for EMERGENCY USA. EndEbolaNow doesn't take in any money for itself; all donations go directly to EMERGENCY USA.

Blake says she and her team gravitated toward EMERGENCY USA since it is extremely transparent about how the money is spent. Both organizations welcome questions about it, and are working on a Q&A section to answer the most common ones.

Additional donations will help build more treatment centers, since the Ebola outbreak may take some time to fight. “One of the best way to prevent the spread of Ebola to the United States and other countries is by building and staffing more Ebola Treatment Centers in the already affected areas, like Sierra Leone,” says Talbert. “Everyone agrees that more treatment centers are needed. We have been and will continue to do this but we need the support of more people in the United States who want to help build effective and efficient Ebola Treatment Centers near Freetown.”

Zahra stresses that a more global attitude needs to emerge when it comes to fighting disease outbreaks: “We have to stop having the mentality, ‘if it’s not in my house, it’s ok – it’s not my business.'" And Blake adds, “It’s not just about helping Africa, it’s helping ourselves. This is a human problem, not an African problem. We are a global community.”

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge raised $100 million within a month. How much can we raise to fight Ebola?

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