THE G-MAN INTERVIEWS: BISI IDERAABDULLAH Co- Founder of Imani House, Inc. Fears Disease Will Continue to Spread and Explains How Firestone is Involved **FAIR USE NOTICE** These Videos May Contain Copyrighted (©) Material. The Use of Which Has Not Always Been Specifically Authorized by The Copyright Owner. Such Material is Made Available to Advance Understanding of Ecological, Political, Human Rights, Economic, Democracy, Scientific, Moral, Ethical, Social Justice Issues, Teaching, and Research. It is believed that this Constitutes a ''Fair Use'' of Any Such Copyrighted Material as Provided For in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In Accordance With Title - 17 U.S.C. Section 107, This Material is Distributed Without PROFIT to Those Who Have Expressed a Prior General Interest in Receiving Similar Information For Research and Educational Purposes. For More Information: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode Welcome. My guest is Bisi Ideraabdullah. She’s an educator, activist, writer and the founder of Imani House, Inc., a non-profit organization that provides youth development and family support programs in the United States and Liberia, West Africa. She attended Brooklyn College as a pre-med student and went on to become the first Black recipient of the Brooklyn College Alumnae Study Abroad Scholarship, which allowed her to study for a year at the Universities of Zambia and Ghana in Africa. She married Mahmoud Ideraabdullah in 1973 and they relocated to Miami (Florida), where they settled for 10 years and had five children. The couple also managed a prosperous jewelry business and a private school during their residency. In 1982, on their annual visit to New York, Mrs. Ideraabdullah went into critical labor in Charleston, South Carolina. She was rushed to hospital and told that she couldn’t be admitted without medical insurance. By the time the couple located the county hospital and were admitted, their daughter, whom they named Imani, had passed away. In effort to escape prejudice and the limitations their children would face in the U.S., the Ideraabdullahs decided to leave Miami and move to Liberia, West Africa. The couple arrived in Liberia on November 7, 1985. Two days later, they found themselves in the midst of an attempted coup d’état by Thomas Quiwonkpa against Liberian president Samuel Doe. The chaos and violence forced the Ideraabduallahs to remain locked in their home for a week. Despite periods of extreme brutality, the couple began to integrate into their new environment and incorporated a non-profit, which they later named Imani House, and opened a small school. Even though she and her family were forced to evacuate Liberia in 1996 during a brutal attack on the city by Charles Taylor, who served as the 22nd president of Liberia, she ran Imani House (Liberia) from her office in Brooklyn – keeping the clinic and adult literacy programs going, raising funds, and finally establishing an office for youth and literacy programs in Brooklyn by 1997. Today, the Imani House Liberia Clinic is actively involved in the fight to prevent and end the spread of Ebola. In the third week of September, 2014, the facility lost two of its staff to the deadly disease: Morrison Nyei died on September 21, and Theresa Kpatima passed away on September 22. The virus was not contracted from a patient, but from a man that Mr. Nyei treated outside of the clinic. It appears that he then spread the infection to Mrs. Kpatima, who worked closely with him in registration at the clinic. All staff wore protective clothing and mask. The clinic was quarantined and sanitized, In addition, all staff members were ordered to self-quarantine for 21 days. The clinic was reopened and its community education outreach was upgraded to include surveys that were created by a U.S. company. Efforts are underway to renovate the old clinic so it can be used as a triage center and a holding/transfer space for those with fevers or anyone suspected of having Ebola. The Skype interview was conducted on November 20, 2014. Additional information pertaining to this episode and contact information for Imani House, Inc: http://imanihouse.org/ http://imanihouse.org/liberia http://www.globalgiving.org/donate/1021/imani-house-inc/ http://www.wnyc.org/story/after-ebola-tragedy-brooklyns-imani-house-re-open-clinic-liberia/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oau6M_cakTc&feature;=youtu.be Imani House 76-A Fifth Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11217 Twe Farm, Monrovia Liberia (718) 638-2059

• published: 24 Nov 2014
• views: 15