NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED                                                                                                          Nov. 13, 2014

By Chernor Bah,  a former refugee from the civil war in Sierra Leone, is a youth advocate for the Global Partnership for Education and a co-founder of A World at School.

Arriving at Port Loko, one of the largest towns in the north of Sierra Leone, is like reaching a country under siege. In the face of Ebola, the 500,000 inhabitants of this district have been sealed off from the world, stigmatized like a cellblock of criminals, and left largely to fend for themselves. Even to bring them food and schoolbooks, you need a government pass. And they are not alone. Counting other districts under quarantine, more than a third of the nation cannot move freely.