Wednesday, July 16, 2025
In the hospitals and health clinics in Sierra Leone supported by Bread and Water for Africa® there is a significant need to replace mattresses that are deteriorating due to years of use.
Clean, comfortable, and supportive mattresses are essential for patient well-being by promoting restful sleep and faster recovery as well as addressing the high burden of chronic diseases and the needs of post-surgical patients in recovery. In addition, damaged or aged mattresses in a clinical setting can pose significant risks of infections. Maintaining high-quality mattresses are crucial for infection control in healthcare settings.
In 2019, Bread and Water for Africa® formed a partnership with Rural Youth Development Organization – Sierra Leone (RYDO-SL) to rehabilitate the Mokoba Health Center, and thanks to our supporters, by March 2020 we were able to report that “some 5,600 Sierra Leoneans, including 2,200 boys and girls, received healthcare services in the newly-renovated health center.”
In the years since then, Bread and Water for Africa® and RYDO-SL have continued to grow and strengthen their collaboration in healthcare. RYDO-SL’s healthcare partners operate health centers that collectively provide medical care to tens of thousands of individuals annually, a large percentage of them young children and new mothers. Most recently, earlier this month we reported on our joint effort with RYDO-SL to construct a brand-new Kagbaima Health Center to replace the previous deteriorating structure to serve a population of nearly 5,000 individuals.
Also, during all this time, Bread and Water for Africa® has been partnering with The Reuse Network (IRN), an organization dedicated to promoting and facilitating the reuse of good furniture and equipment, to reduce waste and support communities in need in the U.S. and around the world, to ship items including desks and classroom furniture to schools in Sierra Leone.
Today, we are partnering once again with RYDO-SL and The Reuse Network to ship 230 donated twin long vinyl mattresses valued at more than $84,500 to Sierra Leone, where they will be distributed to numerous health centers in the rural areas served by RYDO-SL.
And thanks to the supporters of Bread and Water for Africa® our hope is that in the coming few months, patients in the health centers which receive these mattresses will be able to rest easily as they recuperate from their illness or injury.
