Our team in Ghana has been working to keep families in marginalised communities healthy and safe throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis has presented an array of challenges, impacting all areas of these families lives from their health and financial stability to their children's education. AfriKids has been on the front line, helping these families in their hour of need and reacting to new challenges as they arise. Though it hasn't been easy, we've made some great progress.
Here's a closer look at our COVID-19 response work, straight from AfriKids Ghana staff members, David Pwalua and Nich Kumah:
"Our main aim in all of this as an organization whose strengths lay in community mobilization, engagement and empowerment was to ensure that people were adequately informed on COVID-19 and the protocols as there wasn't enough information going around, especially in our communities. COVID-19 to them was a myth and the little information that was in circulation was in English and on social media, making it highly inaccessible to our beneficiaries who are mostly illiterate or semi-literate. We had to find a way to keep in touch with our beneficiaries during this time as they were the most vulnerable."
So how did AfriKids respond?
"Information on corona virus was converted into 11 local languages. 1,000 Posters were procured and distributed. These were designed pictorially so you don’t need to be able to read to understand them.
AfriKids also secured items such as hand sanitizers, nose masks, soap, veronica buckets and learning resources for families.”
In addition to our COVID-19 response efforts, we are working toward a new normal for all of our programmes and adapting the way work to meet communities' needs. This includes many changes such as broadcasting our child rights lessons via radio (which has actually allowed us to reach more children than ever before) as well as adjusting our education programmes for home learning.
"In all this, we have learned most importantly that the people in our target districts have full confidence and repose a lot of trust in Afrikids. A battle has so far been won but the war still rages on. "
As we continue to adapt our work to these ever-changing circumstances, we are thankful for our generous supporters who have made this all possible. Visit our Crisis Appeal page to learn more.
