Sierra Leone Opens First NICU, Saves Lives Now

On Valentine's Day 2026, Sierra Leone celebrated a gift that will save thousands of lives: the country's first neonatal intensive care unit.

The Paul E. Farmer Maternal Center of Excellence opened its doors with 166 beds, modern equipment, and a team of trained midwives ready to provide care that was impossible just days before. Within hours, the center delivered its first baby—a healthy girl.

For years, Sierra Leone ranked among the world's most dangerous places to give birth. The maternal mortality rate hit 1 in 52 women in 2020, compared to 1 in 3,800 in the United States. Premature babies and high-risk mothers had nowhere to turn for specialized care.

Partners in Health began working with local officials in 2014 to change that reality. They added blood banks, trained midwives, and improved family planning access. But the need demanded something bigger.

Authors and internet educators Hank and John Green saw that need and decided to act. In 2019, they launched Awesome Socks Club, selling socks and donating every penny to Partners in Health. That platform grew into Good Store, which has now raised over $12 million for healthcare projects.

The Green brothers contributed $50 million total through their store, personal donations, and their annual Project For Awesome charity livestream. Their online community, called Nerdfighteria, rallied behind the cause for six years.

The hospital broke ground in 2021. During construction, Partners in Health hired a majority-women crew to build the facility and trained 200 clinical staff, including 51 midwives, to run it.

The Ripple Effect

This hospital represents more than one building in one country. It proves what coordinated global effort can accomplish when communities refuse to accept preventable deaths as inevitable.

The training programs created for this center will produce skilled healthcare workers for decades. The systems developed here can be replicated across West Africa. And the message is clear: maternal health matters everywhere.

Gab Rima, a Nerdfighter since age 11, donated $5 from their first paycheck at 16. Now 27, they watched that small contribution become part of something extraordinary. "I'm so proud that the people I decided to be a fan of at 11 years old continue to prove themselves worthy of their audience," Rima said.

John Green reminded supporters that the real heroes are the Sierra Leonean workers who built the hospital and will staff it every day. But he acknowledged what the community accomplished together: "There's never been a NICU in the country of Sierra Leone, and now, as of today, there is one."

That first baby girl born at the center arrives into a country with new possibilities for survival and health.