When teenage Peter, a school student in Monrovia, Liberia, started having epileptic seizures, a misdiagnosis only made things worse, and his mother feared he wouldn’t be able to return to school. Now on regular treatment, Peter looks forwarding to fulfilling his own dreams for the future, and his mother’s for him. 

*surname has been withheld

TRANSCRIPT

[SPEAKER: PETER, a school student living with epilepsy in Monrovia, Liberia]

00:01:20 - 00:02:22
The [first] time it happened to me

00:03:00 - 00:04:00
I was at my first school. 

00:05:10 - 00:06:20
When they finished ringing the bell,

00:06:30 - 00:08:05
that’s when everyone was going inside,

00:08:10 - 00:09:20
that’s how I fell down by myself.

00:10:20 - 00:12:00
But I didn’t know I had fallen,

00:12:10 - 00:14:00
and then they took me to the hospital.

00:14:15 - 00:16:15
The third time it happened to me,

00:16:45 - 00:18:15
was when I had gone to draw water at the well.

00:19:00 - 00:20:10
That’s how I fell down.

00:20:20 - 00:22:00
People who didn’t know about the sickness

00:22:10 - 00:23:10
said, “Oh it’s a spell.”

[SPEAKER: VIVIAN T SAMBOLA, Médecins Sans Frontières psychosocial worker, Liberia]

00:30:00 - 00:33:16
That's one of the traumatic experience

00:33:17 - 00:34:23
for most of our patients.

00:35:10 - 00:36:10
People will either call you,

00:36:15 - 00:38:10
"Do you know that boy with the spell?"

00:38:12 - 00:41:05
Or even down to your relatives are being stigmatised

00:41:07 - 00:42:10
because of the illness.

00:42:15 - 00:46:05
The issue of awareness has been one of our strategies.

00:46:07 - 00:48:15
And like I know, knowledge is power.

00:48:18 - 00:51:20
Like for epilepsy, we tell them it's not contagious.

[SPEAKER: GERTRUDE, Peter's mother]

00:55:15 - 00:57:00
Yes, I was feeling bad.

00:57:05 - 00:59:18
I was thinking he was not going to be able to go to school again.

00:46:07 - 00:48:15
Why?

01:02:00 - 01:04:00
Because of the sickness.

01:04:19 -01:07:01
Because maybe when he went to school,

01:07:05 -01:09:03
when they see him falling down,

01:09:05 -01:12:04
the teachers would not allow him to be in the class.

01:12:05 - 01:13:23
Maybe they would put him outside.

01:13:25 - 01:16:00
That’s what was worrying me.

[SPEAKER: VIVIAN T SAMBOLA]

01:18:00 - 01:20:15
Peter is one of our success stories.

01:20:17 - 01:23:05
He was taken from his first school

01:23:07 - 01:26:05
because of [his] constant falling down.

01:26:10 - 01:27:10
His family got embarrassed

01:27:15 - 01:29:00
and when they heard about MSF,

01:29:05 - 01:31:15
they started treatment with MSF [in] Clara Town.

01:31:17 - 01:33:15
Then the seizures start to reduce.

01:33:20 - 01:35:06
and then his mother and him

01:35:08 - 01:37:23
got that courage to go back to another school,

01:37:24 - 01:39:10
and now he's in school.

[SPEAKER: REVEREND MOTHER STELLAH SANNOH, Principal, Start Right International School]

01:41:00 - 01:42:10
Since he started with us,

01:42:15 - 01:45:15
that sickness has never affected him on the school campus.

01:45:19 - 01:47:25
The mother can tell me that he's going for treatment.

01:48:05 - 01:49:22
Whenever he's going for treatment,

01:48:05 - 01:51:18
I can inform the class teacher and say,

01:51:19 - 01:54:12
"Oh, Peter will not be in school so-and-so day

01:54:13 - 01:55:20
because he's going for treatment."

[SPEAKER: PETER]

01:58:05 - 02:00:05
The medicine is doing good things for me.

02:01:13 - 02:04:05
All the girls at the house are lazy, only me [helps].

02:04:08- 02:05:20
I haul water,

02:05:23- 02:07:10
I wash dishes,

02:08:00- 02:09:20
I sweep the yard.

02:10:51 - 02:12:10
And when [ma] sends me [on errands], I go.

02:13:10 - 02:14:18
That’s everything. 

[SPEAKER: GERTRUDE]

02:17:10 - 02:19:11
I know that he's already better now.

02:19:12 - 02:21:02
So I want him to learn a good trade

02:21:03 - 02:22:17
that will make him money.

02:23:07 - 02:24:12
I would say, Peter is good!

[ENDS]