Professor Claudena Skran
January 2016… How has the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone affected children? You’re invited to attend a special Healthy NewsWorks event to hear Professor Claudena Skran share the stories of children who lost homes, parents, and months of schooling while enduring quarantines and hospitalizations.
The talk will be on Tuesday, February 9, at 5:30 p.m., in Room 108 of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Parkway Central Library, 1901 Vine Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103. Admission is FREE.
Dr. Skran, an expert in refugees and migration, African politics and development, and humanitarian assistance, will also discuss international efforts to assist in the nation’s recovery. She has visited the country 17 times, including three times during the Ebola epidemic, and she interviewed dozens of Ebola orphans and survivors during her latest visit in October and November 2015.
Dr. Skran is Professor of Government and Edwin and Ruth West Professor of Economics and Society at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, and founder of KidsGive, a scholarship program for children in Sierra Leone. She was the first U.S. Fulbright scholar to Sierra Leone after its 1991–2002 civil war and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where she earned her doctorate in international relations.
She is the author of Refugees in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime and is at work on Ebola Time, a book about children, schools, and the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone.
Healthy NewsWorks and KidsGive are currently working on a “peer-to-peer” education project about healthy water that will be shared with young students in Sierra Leone.
If you plan to attend, be sure to allow extra time to get to the Parkway Central Library, due to road work in the area.
In case of inclement weather, please check the Healthy NewsWorks or Free Library of Philadelphia websites for updates.
