Winnipeg couple from Sierra Leone arrange to send shipping container loaded with donated medical supplies to West African hospital By: Erik Pindera Posted: 4:15 PM CDT Wednesday, Apr. 29, 2026

A small warehouse off Inkster Boulevard was bustling Wednesday morning as volunteers packed a shipping container full of donated medical supplies to send to a hospital in northern Sierra Leone.

The container, shipped by local organization International Hope Canada, is destined for Kabala Government Hospital, which serves Kabala, the capital of Sierra Leone’s Northern Province, and the surrounding region in West Africa.

International Hope Canada — a charitable non-profit, established in 1997 and run entirely by volunteers — sends used medical equipment and other health-care supplies to under-resourced hospitals and clinics in developing countries around the world, where such equipment is in short supply.

The shipment was sponsored by Kanko Mansaray, a health-care aide at the Health Sciences Centre, and Abdulai Konteh, who also used to work as a health-care aide.

“This will help save lots of lives,” said Konteh, as volunteers tightly packed the shipping container with boxes and hospital beds. “People are struggling.”

Konteh and Mansaray, a married couple, set up a non-profit, One Salone Aid & Education Foundation, which aims to provide school supplies and medical equipment to those in need in their home country of Sierra Leone, where they emigrated from in 2000.

The 12-metre-long (40 feet) shipping container was packed full of 25 hospital beds and mattresses, a birthing bed, more than 500 boxes of other medical supplies — everything from gauze and bed linens to catheters and intravenous tubing — and examination tables, procedure lights, an ultrasound machine and other health-care items. It will take about two months for the container to reach its destination.

Konteh said the idea to apply for and arrange an International Hope Canada shipment was a long time in the making.

When Konteh was working as a health-care aide in Winnipeg in 2017, he talked with a friend about a then-ongoing Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, and they decided to work together to ship some personal protective equipment from Winnipeg to the hospital in Kabala.

“I said, ‘You know what, we may need to do something more (for the hospital),’” he said, which eventually led him to work with International Hope Canada to set up another, bigger shipment of equipment and supplies after several false starts over the years.

He was jubilant as he helped load up the container Wednesday.

“It’s super, super, super important,” said Konteh. “There’s no word I can use to describe it.”

He said the hospital and its staff critically need the supplies to provide care.

“It’s not just for the people, the patients, but also the staff,” he said. “If you don’t have the tools that are necessary, it makes your job very, very difficult. Just for them to have the tools, to be able to do their job efficiently, there’s no word I can use to express that, I’m so excited.”

He said it’s easy to take Canada’s medical and educational systems for granted, adding his non-profit can be reached by email at info@onesaloneaid.org.

Konteh and others raised funds to help pay for the shipment. Such shipments typically cost about $20,000, said International Hope’s volunteer president, Kevin Stewart.

The organization sends about seven shipping containers to hospitals in need during the year. Winnipeg organizations and charities that represent people who immigrated from various countries often apply for the shipments, as do some hospitals and health authorities in other countries.

“We complain a lot about our (health-care) system, but comparatively, it’s a gold-standard system,” said Stewart, adding some of the hospitals the charity has helped don’t have enough beds for every patient, leaving some patients to sleep on cardboard on the floor.

Most of the goods are donated by Manitoba hospitals, medical businesses and nursing homes after the equipment or supplies can no longer be used here.

The organization also takes donations from the public and sells some of the goods it typically doesn’t ship to developing countries — such as stair lifts or electric wheelchairs — to help raise money and purchase supplies. International Hope Canada can be reached at info@internationalhope.ca.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca