Mamas for Burundi

Burundi

Burundi has yet to take drastic measures of lockdown, prohibiting social, official or public gatherings, but the government has suspended flights to and from Melchior Ndadaye International Airport, encouraged citizens to wash their hands, and provided a hotline for reporting those who could have been infected.

Concerns and Challenges

Access to face masks and sanitation products is difficult, especially for women and girls, epidemiological surveillance and investigation of cases, taking into account risk communication and community engagement, and prevention and management of false information are all challenges in which Mamas for Burundi (MAFOBA) is facing.

Adaptation Measures and Emergency Fund

MAFOBA is utilizing its experience with informative campaigns, such as the Promotion of Maternal and Reproductive Health in the Six Provinces of Burundi program, to inform their communities about COVID-19 and preventative measures on spreading and contracting the virus.

The members of MAFOBA and its volunteers have been hard at work raising awareness of the pandemic in the field.

They have been especially grateful for the infusion of funds from our Emergency Fund to allow them to work in an unrestricted fashion to determine, and meet, needs on a day by day basis within their communities.

Update from June 2020

MAFOBA is combining their information campaigns on reproductive health and prevention of COVID-19. This allows for more aspects of women and girls’ health to be cared for simultaneously.

Chitani Community Sustainable Development Organization

Malawi

Malawi reported its first coronavirus cases on April 2, 2020. The country declared a "state of disaster", closed schools, and cancelled all visas issued before 20 March.

The government attempted to implement a 21-day lockdown. However, it was temporarily barred by a Malawi high court following a petition by the Malawi Human Rights Defenders Coalition (HRDC) based on the grounds that it would harm the poorest and most vulnerable of society. Prior to the court backing the appeal made by HRDC, protestors took to the street with placards that stated it would be better to contract the virus than die of hunger.

Concerns and Challenges

Due to the coronavirus, schools have been closed in Malawi and ultimately Chitani Community Sustainable Development Organization’s (CHICOSUDO) operations have been affected. Schools are key in the fight to end child marriage.

An increase in misinformation and a lack of accessible correct information for populations in rural areas has been noted by CHICOSUDO as many do not have radios and advanced cellphones.

As seen around the globe, those that depend on daily incomes are struggling to survive without access to markets.

Emergency Fund

With access to Rockflower’s Emergency Fund, CHICOSUDO is providing multiple services to their communities as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. They have been promoting the importance of good sanitation and providing hand-washing stations. Due to the closure of schools, CHICOSUDO is introducing indoor education activities for children of primary school age. Disseminating correct information about the coronavirus is of the utmost importance. This is being done through door to door campaigns and via technology, such as SMS and social media campaigns.

Update from June 2020

CHICOSUDO has continued to respond to the pandemic through education and hygiene initiatives.

Schools remained closed in Malawi so community based volunteers provide home-based education. Additionally, community members are encouraged to turn their radios on to the education program conducted by the Government of Malawi.

WASHing (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) is one of the most important preventative measures against the coronavirus. CHICOSUDO has reached over 6,500 people with their WASH-related messaging.

Traditional leaders have been oriented in their roles to inform and mobilize communities about COVID-19.

While the COVID-19 crisis is occurring, CHICOSUDO continues to advocate against child marriage and for gender-based violence protections by working within community structures, including traditional and faith leaders and clan heads. 15 clubs have been organized composing of 8 to 12 members throughout the Blantyre and Mulanje districts.

Currently underway are programs to create Chichewa videos about COVID-19.

Community Services Program

Pakistan

Prime Minister Imran Khan originally had Pakistan in lockdown until April 14. A two-week extension was added but some industries would begin to reopen in phases. The first will be construction.

Unlike around the world, mosques in Pakistan will be open during Ramadan, “as long as they followed 20 rules, including forcing congregants to maintain a six-foot distance, bring their own prayer mats and do their ablutions at home.”

Concerns and Challenges

Community Services Program (CSP) is one of Rockflower’s longest partners and maintains close communication throughout the year. Every day they face extremely challenging conditions to reach the most vulnerable in their communities, and the threat of COVID-19 poses yet another layer of concern for those hardest to reach. The key is in following the correct protocol in communication and awareness building to ensure that prevention and treatments are swift and efficient.

Adaptation Measures

For the last three weeks, CSP has been working with the National Institute of Health to train volunteers in 14 districts. They have held trainings with 26 female and 4 male volunteers on how to fan out and distribute information effectively. Each trainer is responsible for visiting 53 families within their immediate surroundings, and if they suspect any symptoms or potential infections, they will assist them in their travels to the hospital.

Emergency Fund

With funds from the Emergency Fund, CSP has been able to conduct these trainings, produce banners and posters, and also offer physical assistance to the most at-risk girls and women, with the provision of wheelchairs for two girls with Cerebral Palsy.

Update from May 2020

Youth and Women Initiative for Sustainable Development

Uganda

Uganda’s President Museveni originally placed the country on a 14-day lockdown beginning March 30. On April 14, the border closures and lockdown controls were extended for an additional 21 days.

Concerns, Challenges, and Adaptation Measures

Nankindu Angella, Chairperson and Co-founder of Youth and Women Initiative for Sustainable Development (YWISD), has been working from home with her family due to the lockdown. Everyone is confined to their homes, and as a result many people are struggling to survive as they rely on their daily incomes to feed their families. YWISD is very concerned for the vulnerable populations in their community that are at high risk of starvation.

Emergency Fund

YWISD received money from the Emergency Fund and was able to act quickly and put it to good use. They purchased essential food items to distribute to community members and are in constant contact with those who will be most at risk of hunger in the coming weeks.

Kinyamaseke Youth in Development

Uganda

Uganda’s President Museveni originally placed the country on a 14-day lockdown beginning March 30. On April 14, the border closures and lockdown controls were extended for an additional 21 days.

Concerns and Challenges

Information about prevention measures air on National TV. However, most people in rural areas don't own TVs and are unaware of the virus, how it spreads and how to prevent. This has led to some people believing the disease is linked to witchcraft.

Adaptation Measures

Biira Miriam, Chairperson of Kinyamaseke Youth in Development (KYID), has been working with two other team members to maintain the office. They developed simple, easily remembered concepts for preventing COVID-19 to pass information to members of the community.

Emergency Fund

With the money we secured for KYID through our Emergency Fund, they were able to:

• Purchase washing buckets with taps

• Purchase washing soap and distributed it to the members

• Purchase reusable facemasks

• Purchase boxes of gloves

• Compiled WHO health guidelines and translated them into the local language to provide to organization and community members

• Used airtime on the phone to mobilize members for distribution of the aforementioned items

• Hire a van (as public and private vehicles have been banned due to the lockdown) to transport the aformentioned materials from Kasese to Kinyamaseke for distribution

Update from June 2020

The continuation of our Emergency Fund gave KYID the opportunity to distribute essential food items, including cassava flour, maize flour, and beans, and sanitary pads to vulnerable women acting as single heads of their families.

Society for the Improvement of Rural People

Nigeria

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari originally announced a 14-day lockdown for the Lagos, Abuja and Ogun states on March 30. A 14-day extension was added.

Specifically in the Enugu State, borders, schools, inter-state transportation, markets, and airports have been closed, and gatherings have been banned.

Concerns and Challenges

Many people have experienced increased difficulty in accessing food supplies and medicines, especially women and children.

Adaptation Measures

Due to the ban on gatherings, the Society for the Improvement of Rural People (SIRP) has adapted in how to inform and educate their community. They stay in contact with beneficiaries via phone. Previously, SIRP held a Skills and Entrepreneurship training on soap making that has provided many girls with the knowledge that is in high demand right now. Additionally, they have produced posters and leaflets in lieu of trainings to inform the public on precautionary measures to be taken to avoid the spread of COVID-19.

Emergency Fund

With the emergency funds from Rockflower, SIRP was able to hold an educational program for 30 women and girls from the Ikirike and Idaw-River community. This included a knowledge sharing session about COVID-19 highlighting precautionary measures to take to avoid contracting the virus, the demonstration and distribution of facemasks and the distribution of essential food items. They were also able to provide posters to be shared more widely with the community.

Update from May 2020

The continuation of the Emergency Fund is focusing on adolescent girls. The majority of the project will be implemented on May 28, 2020, the International Day of Menstrual Hygiene.

Due to the COVID-19 crisis, women and girls have had to sacrifice their maternal and reproductive health. Before the pandemic, gender inequality, discriminatory social norms, cultural taboos, poverty, and lack of basic hygiene often left menstrual hygiene needs to go unmet. Now these deprivations have become exacerbated. Resulting in far-reaching negative impacts on the lives of our adolescent girls and young mothers, including but not limited to restricted mobility, freedom and choices, reduced participation in school, work and community life, compromised safety, and additional stress and anxiety.

Under the continuation of the Emergency Fund, the following activities will be implemented:

• Education on how to prevent COVID-19 using the WHO and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) protocols.

• Discussions around the 2020 International Day of Menstrual Hygiene.

• Training on how to make reusable menstrual pads as skills training for economic empowerment for adolescent girls of Idaw River community.

• Distribution of IEC materials, Personal Protective, Equipment (PPEs), sanitary pads and food items to mitigate the challenge of hunger for these adolescent young girls during this lockdown period as a result of COVID-19.

Read about SIRP’s International Day of Menstrual Hygiene.

Women in Sustainable Development

Kenya

A dusk to dawn curfew has been installed nationwide by President Uhuru Kenyatta. In addition, travel restrictions increased to ban movement in and out of Nairobi, Mombasa, and two counties for three weeks.

Concerns, Challenges and Adaptation Measures

Most of Women in Sustainable Enterprises’ (WISE) activities involve trainings. Due to the ban on gatherings, these have been canceled. WISE continues to operate though as Caroline Odera, Founder and Director, and her team of volunteers works from home.

One of their main challenges at the moment is assisting their women entrepreneurs. Due to a lack of daily income for many households, those who are renting solar lamps are unable to pay. WISE is exploring how to combat this issue. Additionally, WISE was expanding to Mageta Island. However, the inter-county travel restrictions have put this on hold.

Emergency Fund

WISE received Emergency Funds from Rockflower. They quickly utilized the money and put many local interventions into action.

WISE issued 60 facemasks, bars of soap and cereals to the local women entrepreneurs that they engage within their programs.

They also involved the use of drama in the local language to better educate the women and the rest of the Dunga community on the importance of handwashing, wearing face masks and social distancing as part of the WHO preventative measures for contracting the coronavirus. 

Hope for the Future Organization

Uganda

Uganda’s President Museveni originally placed the country on a 14-day lockdown beginning March 30. On April 14, the border closures and lockdown controls were extended for an additional 21 days.

Concerns and Challenges

Hope for the Future has a number of concerns and challenges, including but not limited to lack of daily income for women, access to medical supplies and food, and the surge in reports of domestic violence.

The lockdown controls have closed businesses, markets and roadside stalls. Many of the beneficiaries Hope for the Future works with who are dependent on daily trade are unable to make an income. This results in a lack of basic necessities needed during this pandemic. Women who now have to ask their husbands for help are being met with violence in return.

“Accessing medical care and food is a far fetched dream to many. Domestic violence against women and children is on the rise as they demand basics from their husbands.”

Emergency Fund

Rockflower has sent money from the Emergency Fund. Hope for the Future has been able to provide powdered milk, maize flour, sugar, soap and cooking oil to elderly women with grandchildren, refugee families and those families headed by both women and children respectively.

Update from May 2020

Hope for the Future continued their food distribution program. Through their community outreach, they have seen an increase in domestic violence, families falling apart, and many young women unemployed due to the closing of the hospitality industry.

Women Advocacy Project

Women Advocacy Project (WAP) has been a partner of Rockflower since 2016. In 2018 they secured a Peace Fellow from The Advocacy Project (AP) in Washington DC. Rockflower and AP have continued to work together to ensure that WAP is able to progress in their vision to reduce the prevalence of child marriage in their communities. AP has sent two peace fellows since the beginning of their partnership with WAP. Iain Guest, Founder and Director of AP, visited WAP last November and produced the video of Evelyn found at the end of this news item. WAP was making great progress with their soapmaking business and was set to scale before the threat of COVID-19 shut everything down.

Zimbabwe

Beginning on March 30, Zimbabwe was put into a 21-day lockdown.

Concerns and Challenges

Women Advocacy Project’s main concern is the state of the Zimbabwean health system. There is a “dire shortage of ventilators, oxygen tanks, biohazard suits and N95 face masks for healthcare professionals fighting the coronavirus pandemic.” Additionally, there are inadequate screenings across the country and a lack of quarantine and isolation facilities.

Adaptation Measures

Constance Mugari, Executive Director of WAP, is already making soap in her home to distribute to beneficiaries. Once the lockdown is lifted, Women Advocacy Project is planning to train the women and girls to make hand sanitizer and masks.

Emergency Fund

Rockflower has sent funds to the Women Advocacy Project, to combine with those from AP and others supporting their work. This will help cover the cost of printing information pages on the virus, delivering small food parcels and making masks.

Update from June 2020

In addition to the continuous support from our Emergency Fund, WAP also received funds from Action for World Solidarity, The Advocacy Project, and the Pollination Project. This combined aid resulted in distribution of essential item parcels, including 10 kgs of maize meal, 2 liters of cooking oil, 2 bottles of hand washing soap, 5 face masks, and 1 informative poster, to 100 families in Epworth and Chitungwiza. Additionally donations were made, 200 masks, 150 bottles of soap, and 100 copies of information posters, to St Mary Primary Clinic in Chitungwiza and, 350 masks, 250 bottles of soap, 100 information pages, to Epworth Mission Clinic in Epworth respectively.

Foundation for Women and Children Empowerment

Liberia

Having been severely affected by the Ebola epidemic from 2014 to 2016, organizations in Liberia such as the Foundation for Women and Children Empowerment (FOWACE) understand the hardships that come with a virus like this more than most. Every day they work with those women and children who were most severely affected by the devastation of Ebola and are now anxious not to lose ground with the additional challenge of COVID-19.

Liberian President George Weah issued a 14-day stay-at-home order, prohibited travel, closed schools and has discouraged large gatherings.

The following are excerpts from correspondence with Haja Talawallay, Executive Director of FOWACE.

Concerns and Challenges

“People are so afraid and worried because of the differing news on the virus and our past experience with Ebola.

With the new measures of State of Emergency where people are restricted from leaving their homes, the disabled and disadvantaged women who struggle daily to feed their families are the worse affected people in the society. Liberia is one country that doesn't have social programs for these disadvantaged populations. If nothing is done to provide food and other preventive materials to these poor people, they might not even die from the virus but starvation.”

Adaptation Measures

“We have been reaching out to our beneficiaries with awareness of the virus and how to prevent the spread.”

Emergency Fund

“With the financial support from Rockflower, we purchased the soap produced by our project beneficiaries and rice which we are now distributing to the most vulnerable people in the communities so that they can have food and preventive materials for their families and stay home during these difficult times.”

Update from May 2020

“Schools and markets are still closed and large public gatherings are also still banned. These restrictions are necessary for the prevention of the virus but the effects on women and children are so high. Disabled people and disadvantaged women who depend on their daily incomes are on the streets begging. Informal businesses are highly affected by the crisis. The women have lost their sources of income. They are finding it difficult to feed their families. 

At FOWACE, we have been doing door to door awareness about the prevention of the virus along with food, soap, and reusable face masks distribution.”

Update from June 2020

“Foundation for Women and Children Empowerment (FOWACE) believes that the best way to protect vulnerable and disadvantaged women and children from the COVID-19 pandemic is to ensure that they have food and other preventive materials like soap and face mask. FOWACE continues to identify disadvantaged and vulnerable families and provide them with food, soap and face masks.”

African Youth Alliance

Cameroon

On March 18, 2020, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Health took 13 major steps including the closure of all air, land and sea borders into and out of the country, the closure of all schools, the suspension of entry visas and a call to the population to observe strict hygiene and sanitation rules prescribed by the World Health Organization Full Government Response Strategy.

The following is an excerpt from correspondence with Roseline, Executive Director of the African Youth Alliance (AYA).

Concerns and Challenges

“I will not describe how challenging it is to keep safe without a constant supply of running water, hand sanitizers are a luxury we cannot afford, and our anxiety is high as we know how broken our health system is, I am grateful as rains have started and we can have rainwater for now, the children are healthy, [as of April 1] our villages have not yet recorded cases so far.

As I shared with you in Canada, the communities in which we intervene are already affected by a socio-political armed conflict since 2016. AYA is the only organization supporting rural women and girls in those villages. This year, Rockflower is our only donor so far.

The main challenge is having basic funds to provide education on what COVID-19 is and the hygienic measures for rural women and girls in the local languages. Apart from the little education we started doing before we had to suspend activities, no information has yet reached our rural women and girls on the pandemic.”

Adaptation Measures

“To keep our three main volunteers in the village safe, we painfully agreed with them to stop activities for now, due to a lack of funds. I am writing to different people, asking if they can help support with funds for the education of rural women and girls on COVID-19.

They do not have access to information, there is no electricity or internet in the village. We are very worried about what will happen to all of them if the disease arrives in the communities. These communities already fragmented by war are just not prepared at all. We trained the volunteers in the village ourselves from information read on the internet so they have a basic knowledge. However, they need support in terms of protective wears while going around communities to do education (face masks, gloves, sanitizers). They also suggested that we distribute the hand sanitizers, provide buckets for handwashing stations in public spaces that women and girls frequent often in the village. Unfortunately, for now, we do not yet have support for that. We had already planned to train them on how to produce soap bars and detergents under our current Rockflower project, which will greatly assist them, as well as all surrounding communities.

“It is farming season already, rains have started and the crops are not waiting.”

The only activity we can keep running is the one categorized under the Access to Food and Water key. Organic agriculture, fruit tree planting and water catchment protection through tree planting. Women were already provided with farming and planting inputs. They have started their group vegetable gardens and farms. The volunteer in charge of that activity has requested to continue to monitor the gardens and farms with the women while respecting health and safety measures. It is the farming season already, rains have started and the crops are not waiting, they will grow.”

Emergency Fund

The Emergency Fund from Rockflower provided buckets with taps and soap bars that were placed in public village spaces to enable regular hand washing. The volunteers of the African Youth Alliance received face masks and hand sanitizers. AYA volunteers were trained on what COVID 19, the means of transmissions and how to prevent contamination at the community level. These volunteers will continue to provide awareness and education opportunities for community members.

Update from May 2020

African Youth Alliance is currently undergoing a project in partnership with Rockflower, Five Keys in Five Villages, that began in January. Progress was made throughout the first quarter of 2020. The COVID-19 outbreak caused major setbacks in March. Due to the rural setting AYA works in, there have been varying reactions by the community including fear, panic, disbelief, and mockery. AYA continues to provide educational opportunities on preventative measures and updates on statistics. Additionally, they have continued their work in the village of Tumuku. Read more on Continuing Reproductive Health through the COVID-19 Pandemic.