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 Beatrice Gbanga is a nurse and United Methodist missionary in West Africa. Beatrice serves as the medical coordinator for both Liberia and Sierra Leone Annual Conferences. Liberia and Sierra Leone are now recovering from a decade of civil war which destroyed much of the infrastructure of both nations, including much of their medical system.
Beatrice is extremely well qualified for this role. After earning her G.C.E. Level in 1967 from the Harford School for Girls in Freetown, she received an RN degree in 1972 from Grantham & Kesteven General Hospital in Grantham, England. She then received a master's degree in nursing in 1973 from the Leeds Maternity Hospital in Leeds, England (an outstanding teaching hospital). She later received a nurse tutor's diploma in 1989 from the Centre for Teachers of Health Sciences in Ibadan, Nigeria. In addition, she was certified in Advanced Health Leadership in 1997 by Global Health Action in Atlanta, Georgia.
Early in 2006, our church provided $12,000 for Beatrice Gbanga to initiate a mobile medical clinic for Liberia. The funds were used to purchase a used bus as well as the medical equipment and supplies to stock it. The funding came from a combination of missions funds in the operating budget, the Partners in Mission fund, the UMW rummage sale missions fund, and an anonymous donor. UMW is providing an additional $2,000 for the operation of the mobile medical clinic in 2007.
Today people in rural areas of Liberia must often walk 5-10 miles to the nearest health care facility. This mobile medical clinic will provide medical care to many of those people in the rural areas around Monrovia.
The "new" bus ready to be fitted as a mobile clinic.
Beatrice's other projects in Liberia include the following:
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Training volunteers to provide health care in rural villages.
For a total of $2,000, 20 people can be trained in first aid, maternity care, nutrition, etc., and then become the primary health care providers for their villages.
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Providing prosthetic legs to amputees.
Many people lost legs during the decade of civil war in these nations. For $50, a prosthetic leg can be manufactured and the amputee trained to use it.
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HIV/AIDS awareness program.
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Substance abuse and violence prevention programs.
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Supervising work at Ganta Hospital and several clinics.
After serving as the medical coordinator for the Liberia Annual Conference for a number of years, in July 2006 Beatrice moved to Sierra Leone and is now initiating similar programs there while she continues to have responsibility for the programs in Liberia.
For additional information about Beatrice, please see our Missionaries page.
Beatrice visited our church on April 2, 2006, to discuss her work. She presented a short Missions Moment at each of our four worship services, spoke at length about her work at a luncheon in her honor, and spoke with our middle school and senior high youth in the evening. Everyone who heard her was deeply impressed with her commitment and caring as well as the wide range of important areas of health in which she works.
Beatrice provides a Missions Moment during one of the morning worship services.
Beatrice presented our pastors with beautiful stoles made by her church in Monrovia.
From left: Dr. Carl Price, Deacon Carl Thomas Gladstone,
Rev. Rodney Quainton, Beatrice Gbanga, Rev. Jeff Nelson.
With the youth group after talking with them about the lives of youth in West Africa. |
