History
Bailor: I dreamt of being a doctor since age six, before I realized the challenges of my aspiration. My father was a poor tailor, who fell ill, leaving my mother to struggle as a petty trader. I was fortunate to earn a government scholarship for medical school. Issa and I began as best friends, sharing idle moments with thoughts of change for Sierra Leone.
Dan: I dreamt of being a doctor after working at my college’s immigrant clinic as a Spanish
translator. This experience focused my passion to serve impoverished communities, where the need is greatest. Issa Toure, a Sierra Leonean friend from medical school, drew me to his country’s great need, telling stories of civil war and its amputated civilians.
2006
Issa Toure, a fellow medical student and Sierra Leonean immigrant, introduced Dan to Bailor, his childhood friend. Dan goes to Sierra Leone as a sponsored Global Health Fellow to learn clinical medicine in limited-resource settings during the 2006/7 academic year. While Bailor coordinated Dan’s medical experiences, they became close friends, relating well with their youthful passion to change Sierra Leone.
When Dan worked at the medical school’s affiliate clinics, he saw wealthy individuals and learned Sierra Leone’s financial barriers to healthcare. Dan became motivated to serve the other community: the poorest of the poor. He was fortunate to meet Bailor, a Sierra Leonean doctor whose poor background was his stimulus to serve the poorest of the poor. They stirred each other’s passion with discussions of change.
Bailor helped Dan understand making a sustained difference in Sierra Leone meant choosing a community and maintaining that assistance with an organization. Dan remembered Issa’s stories of amputated civilians. They visited the country’s amputated civilians, eventually starting a non-governmental organization dedicated to serving that community.
Bailor’s local understanding of the amputated civilian community was pivotal to their initial success. Amputated civilians felt media and non-governmental organizations had exploited them. Dan and Bailor traveled around Sierra Leone, conducting focus groups in communities created for amputated civilians, and discovering the highest concentration of amputated civilians in Kono District. Bailor and Dan were met with scepticism. While that attitude may have discouraged other organizations, Bailor and Dan were not deterred, demonstrating their commitment with action.
Dan and Bailor established National Organization for Wellbody (“Health” in Krio, a broken form of English spoken in Sierra Leone) to deliver free, high-quality health care to Sierra Leone’s amputated civilians.
Wellbody established a free monthly clinic for amputated civilians in Kono District. Sahr Bindi, an amputated civilian, offers Wellbody his house to run the clinic.
GAF is founded as a supporting non-profit organization in the United States to develop activities in Sierra Leone.
Dan and Bailor worked at an NGO Hospital, where severely malnourished children were offered health care at a cost. Dan and Bailor witnessed parents and children return home because of financial constraints. Wellbody assumed financial responsibility for this vulnerable population at the NGO Hospital.
2007
Wellbody’s monthly clinic at Sahr Bindi’s house served over 500 amputated civilians and dependents through over 1600 patient visits.
Wellbody broke ground on a primary care health clinic in Kono District.
Kono’s amputated civilians started a 160 acre-farm, growing rice and cassava.
Wellbody is awarded a grant from the Ambassador’s Fund of the Embassy of the United States to build the amputated civilians a warehouse to store their product to sell.
The United Nations Children’s Fund partnered with Wellbody to initiate a community-based nutrition surveillance and feeding program. Wellbody trained village health promoters and starts a feeding program at the NGO Hospital.
2008
Wellbody opened its primary care clinic in January, offering free, high-quality health care to Sierra Leone’s amputated civilians. In 2008, the clinic logged over 4000 patient visits.
Wellbody initiated a weekly health outpost for the clinic’s amputated civilians living in outlying communities.
Wellbody’s village health promoters conducted nutrition surveillance, discovering communities rarely use iodized salt. In 2008, over 35,000 women are educated, over 200,000 children are screened, and over 600 severely malnourished children are rehabilitated.
GAF initiates its Sierra Leone Internship Program.
Dan is honored with Global Health Education Consortium’s “Velji Global Health Project of the Year” Award and Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s “Albert S. Kuperman Award for Field Work in Global Health.”
Bailor discussed the organization''s work and his expertise on BBC One''s Panorama and BBC News worldwide.
Building the clinic won community trust, allowing Bailor and Dan to intimately serve.
Bailor and Dan cultivate community success through the social enterprise of health and agriculture. Just as they know healthcare, Bailor and Dan know they can learn the business of agriculture and can counsel agricultural specialists. Bailor and Dan demonstrate agricultural success in the amputated civilian community. They cultivated a start-up agriculture project, leading to a sponsored warehouse for produce. After market research and technical advice from the Ministry of Agriculture, Bailor, Dan, and the community agreed palm kernel farms would best serve as their business model and 2009 goal.
