For
much of the western world, the Ebola crisis came and went without much fanfare.
Perhaps we were jolted by the initial news stories, taken aback by the images
from affected areas, and slightly unnerved by the travel advisories as we entered
security lines at the airport. But for the most part, the Ebola outbreak was an
abstract crisis affecting people on the other side of the world, multiple
continents away. The closest that most Americans came to Ebola was to hear in
the news about the four diagnosed cases in Texas and New York City. It is safe
to say that most of the world remains unaware of the depths of this crisis in
the West African hotspot countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, New Guinea, and
Nigeria.
Arthur
Pratt is a Sierra Leonian pastor and filmmaker, and he witnessed firsthand the
invisible enemy that threatened to destroy his country, the communities, and
the families that lived there. Despite the human cost that this disease
extracted from the West African people, Pratt was inspired by how the people in
Sierra Leone rose up to defend their country from a viral invasion that was
attacking “the fabric of what it means to be African.” He felt it necessary to
tell the world the story of Sierra Leone’s unsung heroes, and so he created a
documentary titled Survivors, which focused on the work done by the
ambulance drivers and nurses, interwoven with personal stories of children,
mothers, fathers, and communities touched by the disease. Survivors gets
up close and personal to the 21-month battle against Ebola in West Africa, and
shows how the common people of Sierra Leone risked everything to come together
and fight back against an existential threat.
