A 22-year-old nursing student who single-handedly saved three relatives from ebola, using bin bags as protection, has won a place to finish her studies in America.
No, it’s not the pitch for an Oscar-worthy film, but it probably will be one day. Fatu Kekula, from Liberia, knew her father, mother, sister and cousin were in trouble when they contracted ebola but were refused entry to an overcrowded hospital.
So, she did what any incredibly ridiculously, near-impossibly brave person would do and nursed them herself, using rubbish bags to protect her from the bodily fluids which spread the virus.
Unfortunately, after two weeks, though her mother, father and sister were cured, her cousin died, but that still meant her methods of treatment gave her patients a 25% death rate, which is significantly lower than the then-death rate of 70% for Liberia’s ebola sufferers.
After news spread of Fatu’s heroic achievement, Sarah Crowe, a spokesperson for UNICEF told CNN: ‘Essentially this is a tale of how communities are doing things for themselves. Our approach is to listen and work with communities and help them do the best they can with what they have.’
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But, because of the crisis caused by ebola’s spread, schools across the country have been closed and Fatu could no longer continue her studies at Cuttington University’s nursing school.
So, what happened is, a group called iAMProjects asked universities for admission to their nursing schools. Emory University, from Atlanta, Georgia, granted her this and for the past two months, iAMProjects has been working with Fatu to ready her for classes this spring.
One more stumbling block came in the form of money. The trip to America, a visa, tuition and living expenses would cost Fatu $50,000. But iAMProjects helped fundraise the money, and now, well now, Fatu can go to America and achieve her dream of being a nurse.
We figure if she’s got through the inexplicably impossible hurdle of treating family members with ebola, she’ll do pretty good on her course.
If you want to see what else iAMProjects – which specifically aims to get people back into education – is doing, check out its website.
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Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.