Street Child’s rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic across 14 fragile, crisis- and conflict-affected countries has now reached over 4.6 million people with either life-saving information or services to support them to respond to the negative economic, educational and protection impact of COVID-19. Following our Rapid Assessment in May 2020 we have pivoted the focus of our response to “Prevent. Educate. Empower.” – as such during June 2020 activities concentrated on continuing raising awareness of COVID-19 but also on ensuring children are able to engage in learning and empowering communities to recover from the humanitarian impact of COVID-19.
Launch of COVID-19 protection response, funded by Afghanistan Humanitarian Fund (AHF), which will reach over 45,000 children with life-saving protection information and access to mental health and psychosocial support services over next 4 months. 6,000 additional people reached with awareness raising activities and 90 teachers trained on distance learning methodology.
Through our ‘Emergency Health Preparedness’ programme we have reached 24,600 Rohingya refugees in camps by going door-to-door to deliver life-saving health messages. For the ‘Remote Case Management’ pilot project, which will address the protection needs of Rohingya children and adolescents in camps, recruitment for key case management staff is complete.
Awareness-raising activities reached an estimated additional 500,000 people through 28 radio broadcasts. Handwashing stations installed at sites accessible to the Gatumba Flood victims have seen 13,456 users and the ownership of the 52 handwashing stations has now been transferred to the local community who will be responsible for future maintenance.
Street Child have provided farmers with support, agricultural tools, and materials to construct chicken coops and stores for dairy and chicken feed in Nakuru County, Kenya.
Rapid response partners have diversified their activities to include providing vulnerable communities with food and non-food Items; establishing a call centre to deliver remote psycho-social support; supporting schools to become COVID-19 safe and ready for a limited re-opening in June and building the capacity of 10 disability focused organisations so they can integrate a COVID-19 response into their work.
Continuation of activities on the High Plateau of Uvira reached an additional 100,000 people with sensitisation activities through mega-phone messaging and enabled 30,625 to practice good hygiene through the installation of 70 handwashing stations in key public locations. In Goma, 84 street-connected children were provided with food, whilst at a transit center, having being removed from the street due to COVID-19.
Farmers and Community Based Organisations have been supported through the provision of agricultural tools to allow for a growth in milk production to help increase their income during the COVID-19 pandemic. Community based trainers have offered training and continuous monitoring work has enabled farmers to secure their livelihoods, which is especially important during the COVID-19 period.
Targeted awareness raising continued with training given to 225 religious and traditional leaders on COVID-19 and how to prevent the transmission and 10 radio stations airing jingles providing key information on COVID-19 which reached over 60,000 people. 920 sets of hygiene and sanitary materials were distributed to 200 caregivers to encourage good hygiene practices.
Distribution of hygiene supplies to 962 vulnerable families in internally displaces persons (IDP) centres to promote good hygiene practices and 10 new community activists have been prepared to deliver COVID-19 sensitisation through being trained on how to deliver awareness raising and on good communication practices to ensure behaviour changes after sensitisation.
Street Child of Nepal and its implementing partners provided 311 Musahar families, severely affected by lockdown, with essential food and hygiene supplies.
311 Musahar families, severely affected by lockdown, have been provided with essential food and hygiene supplies. Work began in Karnali province, a priority area for the government, and has reached 125,115 people through radio jingles on COVID-19 messaging; 201 families with cash; 734 women and girls with menstrual hygiene resources and 262 students with access to Community Managed Coaching Centres so they can continue learning.
‘Last Mile Learning’, a remote learning programme, was piloted successfully in Maiduguri and is now ready to roll out further. Over 500 litres of liquid soap have been produced by previous Family Business Scheme (FBS) participants and distributed to families and Temporary Learning Centres (TLC). Radio advocacy has taken place to promote the rights of the marginalized Almajiri community alongside work to advocate for families to support and care for their children within these marginalised groups.
111 formerly street-connected children who have been recently reunified with their families, by our partner Uyisenga Ni Imanzi (UNM), received food packages and soap to support their sustainable reintegration with their families. Poverty is a reason behind children leaving their families and the COVID-19 lockdown has worsened the economic situation of the household, as such this support is essential to families staying reunited.
Street Child of Sierra Leone are supporting rural primary and secondary schools to run extra classes to help children catch up with missed content ahead of their upcoming examinations.
Social workers and community teachers have continued to play a critical role in raising awareness of key prevention measures and supplying community handwashing stations, where needed, to enable regular hygiene practices. Following the Government announcement that schools would reopen for exam year students on the 1st July, the focus towards the end of June was on preparations to run catch-up classes in rural primary schools and for vulnerable children in junior secondary school, to ensure children have the best possible opportunity to pass the upcoming exams.
The home-based learning project pilot in Mannar District has exceeded targets and now 300 children are enrolled in home-based learning support. In June we entered into 3 new project partnerships with local organisations to further our localisation work. July will see us collaborate with these partners to provide home-based learning materials and community-based learning support to a further 900 students.
The central focus of June has been working to ensure children can continue learning and 5,465 learning packs were distributed to children in Palabek and 915 home learning packs were distributed to children enrolled in the bridging programme in Kyaka. To combat the rise of child protection violations and sexual gender-based violence due to COVID-19 lockdown we have undertaken community sensitisation and made more than 40 referrals for specialist support for children.