Essex County College Sends Supplies to Liberia to Combat Deadly Ebola Outbreak

Essex County College and Rutgers University recently provided badly needed supplies to help combat the ongoing outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Liberia. Under the Council of Higher Education in Newark (CHEN), a collaborative partnership between New Jersey Institute of Technology, Rutgers University at Newark, and Essex under the Newark City of Learning Collaborative (NCLC) umbrella, the organizations joined forces for this initiative.

Dr. Gale E. Gibson, the President of Essex, was able to present to Renee DeLancey, representing Director Ousseina Alidou at Rutgers’s Center for African Studies in Piscataway, a number of needed items, including:

· 10,000 pairs of gloves
· 600 heavy duty garbage bags
· 80 bars of disinfectant soap
· 35 containers of Lysol disinfectant wipes
· 16 bottles of liquid disinfectant soap

Dr. Dean Marcia Brown, who is also special assistant to Rutgers’s Chancellor Nancy Cantor, assisted in connecting the African Studies Center with Essex County College. The overall effort is through the Center’s Rutgers Emergency Medical Assistance to Fight Ebola in West Africa – Starting in Liberia.

“Our donation to this worthwhile endeavor is the right thing to do,” said Dr. Gibson. She noted that one of the College’s recently adopted Strategic Goals is Collaborative Partnerships with the Community, something in which this humanitarian donation fits.

Rutgers University Distinguished Professor Jim Simon, of the School of Environmental and Biological Studies and part of the medical assistance team, was impressed by the generous donation and the collaboration between the two colleges.
Essex County College, with students from some 50 nations, has been establishing recently academic relationships with a number of countries including Sierra Leone, also hit hard by the Ebola virus.

Rutgers University at Newark has a long historical connection to Liberia, including working closely with the University of Liberia and Cuttington University. The outbreak had prompted RU@N to establish the Emergency Action Committee to assist its partnering Liberian institutions to combat this growing threat to the people of Liberia.

Cash donations to the medical supply efforts may be made here. None of the donated funds will be used for salaries; this is an all-volunteer effort.

About Essex County College
Essex County College is a fully accredited public community college with a total enrollment of more than 16,000 students pursuing Associate degrees and Certificates in more than 40 areas of study on campuses in Newark, West Caldwell (West Essex) and Cedar Grove (Police Academy).

Essex sends more transfer students to Rutgers, New Jersey Institute of Technology and Montclair State University than any other college. Since 2012, Essex has been the leading two-year institution in the nation in producing Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Transfer Scholars who receive up to a $90,000 award from this prestigious organization.

Ranked the most affordable two-year college in New Jersey by the U.S. Department of Education, Essex is New Jersey’s only two-year College designated a Predominantly Black and a Hispanic Serving Institution. Recently, Essex County College was selected as a 2014 Military Friendly School by Victory Media. For more information, click here.

Information and photo courtesy of Essex County College