Early COVID-19 Perspectives

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The Action Foundation Kenya

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The Action Foundation works with caregivers to support children with disabilities in urban & rural informal settlements. For children with disabilities, COVID-19 threatens access to direct therapy, as well as children’s hard-won progress towards developmental and therapeutic milestones. 

The Action Foundation worked with the Kenya Institute of Special Education to convene an online dialogue to address these issues. Participants included caregivers, NGO leaders, advocacy organizations, and educators. Read more here.

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Peerlink Initiative Uganda

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Uganda is under a total lock down since 31st March 2020. In rural settings, children, youth, and women walk to distant wells two to four times a day. Most rural homes do not have soap and water which makes it difficult to practice regular hand washing as a key prevention measure. There is lack of information, protective gear, and basic necessities, such as medicine, food and water.

With schools closed, parents struggle to keep children engaged, as there are no reading materials in many homes in Uganda and little access to television, internet, and smart phones.

At Peerlink, our COVID-19 emergency support effort is focused on:

  • Making low-cost, reusable cloth face masks for distribution to vulnerable community members. 

  • Making liquid soap, and procuring hand sanitizer and bar soap for distribution at key community meeting points, such as wells, health centers, and trading centers. 

  • Development and dissemination of COVID-19 information materials in English and the local language. 

  • Procurement and distribution of essential foods -- maize mill (posho), and rice and beans -- for distribution to households with children, youth, the elderly, and the sick. 

  • Guiding parents and caregivers on weekly household-based indigenous oral literature activities, including folk tales, riddles, proverbs, music, dance, and drama.

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ACCESS Uganda

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In Uganda, most people live from hand to mouth, with 20% of the people below the poverty line and 40% just above it. For our community, staying home makes it difficult to get necessities like soap, food, and salt. Public means of transport, including the boda boda (motorcycles), which are the main means of transport to rural areas, have been stopped. Fetching water is difficult, because it is often far away.

Most of our students live in rural areas and do not have access to the internet, meaning they cannot access schooling online. We are trying to gain access to books for them.

Even though we are very low on personal protective gear, our clinic continues to be open to the public. We are mainly using soap and water, because the antiseptics are very expensive. We have also set up a phone line for our beneficiaries to provide remote assistance.

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Kliptown Youth Program South Africa

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South Africa is under a nationwide lockdown. South Africa’s public health system is already overtaxed, so the challenges are significant. We are working to provide soap and food parcels in a dignified way to the neediest KYP families. We have organized WhatsApp and SMS groups for parents to keep them informed, and this is working well. We are also updating the community with posted bulletins from the government and reliable news sources with relevant information on how to keep safe and how to access resources. We are applying to the Department of Social Development to be approved as essential service providers so that we can continue to distribute food and offer other programs. We have identified the closest testing sites for potential COVID-19 infections and are planning for what to do if and when KYP or community members get sick and need professional medical care and/or require isolation.

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Empowering Youth Cambodia

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Although COVID-19 took its time to reach Cambodia, the number of affected individuals is increasing daily. This increase has triggered the government to put in place strict measures, including restrictions on travel and the closure of schools, universities, and public venues.

The students we support, along with their families, are among those at the lower end of the society -- likelier to lose their jobs and income, more prone to have poor health, and not to be able to pay for medical care. Our community needs us now more than ever. We are making our schools accessible to those students who need online access for distance learning. Additionally, we are keeping our libraries open during certain hours so that the younger kids can borrow books to read at home.

Teachers and school managers are taking turns to ensure that proper hygiene practices are maintained at all times, including disinfecting the classrooms, computers, and libraries regularly and making soap and water accessible for everyone to wash their hands frequently. We are also preparing for any emergency medical needs that may arise, and we will endeavor to keep the medical clinics operational at the schools.

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St. Vincent's Kenya

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Social distancing in the Kibera slum is near impossible with families living in informal one-room structures, without running water, sewage systems, etc. In our community, most people are day laborers - e.g., washing clothes for other people, house helpers, vegetable sellers, etc. Most have lost employment during this time and are struggling more than usual. The Kenyan government has slashed taxes for the lowest earning, but has done very little for informal laborers.

Schools being closed creates a great risk for children here, as families cannot afford to provide the daily meals that schools usually provide. Children from boarding schools were sent home on buses, putting them at risk of infection.

We are teaching children about the importance of hygiene and social distancing. We distributed food and hygiene supplies that should last families approximately 3 weeks. The food distribution reached over 100 families of children in our Nursery School and scholarship program We also donated food stores to another local community-based organization serving children in Kibera to enable them to distribute food to the families they support. The food distribution creates strain on our already overwhelmed budget as we distribute food for entire families, not just the children under our care.

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Center for Domestic Training & Development Kenya

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Our primary beneficiaries, female domestic workers (including young refugees), are more likely to be employed in service sectors that are hit hardest by COVID-19. When healthcare systems are stretched, care responsibilities are “downloaded” onto women and girls, who often bear responsibility for caring for ill family members and the elderly. The closure of schools further exacerbates the burden of unpaid care work by women.

In order to help our beneficiaries as much as possible, our shelter continues to operate 24/7. All shelter services, such as in-house tutoring, medical check-ups, childcare, pregnancy care, and psycho-social support are still being provided. The shelter is in close communication with nearby health centers in cases of emergencies and is adhering to strict hygiene procedures. Our staff at the shelter are provided with protective gear, travel funds, training on COVID-19 preparedness, and regular debriefing sessions with mental health counselors to cope with this stressful period.

We have encouraged our domestic worker communities to form small units of five colleagues/families who check on each other and report problems to designated leaders within their localities. The leaders report these incidences to the CDTD project team daily. The project team coordinates interventions on a case-by-case basis.

For our own team, we are championing mutual care -- prioritizing compassion; taking more time (virtually) to check in with our teams, colleagues, communities we work in; and not being afraid to model vulnerability to others.