COVID-19: Worldwide Updates from Communities

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect lives worldwide, all of us naturally look for reasons to stay hopeful during this difficult period.

Thankfully, Outreach is in the hope business.

Read on for updates on the steps being taken in our communities around the world to keep families safe, as neighbors build on the trust and support established through their teamwork in calmer times.

We will continue to update this post with more news of the amazing work underway as it becomes available.

Outreach’s mission remains centered on the wellbeing of our community partners. Just as global priorities have necessarily shifted to prevent the further spread of COVID-19, so too has our work in the field.

Right now, Outreach field staff is continuing their work with community members to facilitate two important measures:

1. The construction of hundreds of new, centrally located, public hand-washing stations throughout communities, as well as maintaining existing stations already in use.
2. The distribution of rice, household necessities and animal feed to homes to help families whose livelihoods are dependent on seasonal harvests and working animals. Communities are modifying components of their preexisting short-term Rice Loan programs in order to address needs without becoming dependent on outside relief organizations.

Here’s how.

6.23.20 – With ample inspiration and assistance from leaders in the well-established, Outreach-affiliated Nicaraguan community of El Lanito, the neighboring community of El Abra has mobilized into a formidable team of motivated virus-fighters. El Lanito’s experienced leaders have been at their side (from a safe distance) to help facilitate their immediate plans, as well as establish a framework in which residents there can continue to develop and enhance their ability to address the issues they face, well beyond COVID-related concerns.

While still very new to the Outreach Process, a little has gone a long way for El Abra’s team. After observing the mechanics of community-led actions in person during a visit to El Lanito, local leaders from El Abra returned to their village to meetings with three groups of residents to hear concerns and and collaborate on prioritizing needs.

A whirlwind of productivity followed. Along with some less-immediate needs like addressing the issue of smoke in homes from cooking stoves, El Abra’s teams were able to access water filters for 20 households, materials to construct hand-washing stations at schools and families in rural areas, and first aid kits, as well as the aforementioned successful proposal to build 15 “eco-stoves” for families, which drastically reduce the amount of smoke produced during cooking.

It’s important to emphasize again that El Abra is not an official Outreach-affiliated community — they were inspired by the methods and success achieved by El Lanito’s teams over the years, and independently mobilized to emulate their neighbors’ work. It’s incredible to consider how far inspiration can travel — first from Outreach’s facilitators to the El Lanito community years ago, then from one person to another over the years throughout El Lanito, then to El Abra, and now to you, reading this. We’re so proud to be a part of such incredible work.

6.9.20 – As stay-at-home orders continue throughout India, Outreach’s community-led teams have stayed busy to minimize the disruption for local families. After collaborating on grant applications to access supplies from local NGOs to support continued food distribution. 45 families each received a pantry-filling supply: 25kg of rice, 3kg of lentils, 2kg of salt, 2kg of sugar, two liters of cooking oil, and three bars of soap. With conditions unlikely to improve drastically in the short term, teams members continue to prepare and submit grant proposals to help ensure the safety of everyone in their communities.

5.19.20 – Great news from Nepal! As you know, community-led teams in each of our affiliated program locations there have been working diligently for weeks to distribute emergency food supplies to households. Their original plan was to furnish materials to 123 households, but thanks to savvy negotiations with suppliers to lower their costs, smart thinking to adjust quantities based on family size, and the teams’ truly touching “sharing is caring” ethos, they have instead been able to provide 321 households with enough food to ensure everyone stays healthy, happy, and fed while remaining confined to their homes due to government order.

So basically, this is three miracles: 1) Empathetic, empowered community-led teams working together to care for their neighbors. 2) Teams assess their capacity and refine it brilliantly in order to maximize the benefit it provides, and 3) Hundreds more families now have enough food to eat. Boom boom boom. FANTASTIC.

5.7.20 – In Zambia, members of a local community-run tailoring group took it upon themselves to begin manufacturing face-masks for their neighbors. As the Zambian government currently mandates that face-masks are required to be worn by anyone venturing into public places, the tailoring group’s work provides their community with a sense of normalcy, as well as security. Read much more about their incredible efforts here.

4.21.20 – In India, our field teams helped our partners access resources to equip themselves and their families with 25 kg. of rice and 2 kg. of dal (a high-protein lentil dish) each! Outreach India facilitator Rashmi was on site to help keep distribution running smoothly and safely. As you can see, chalk circles denoted safe distances for those in line, and thumbprints took the place of signatures for recipients unable to write their names. So far, more than 200 families have received food supplies, totaling more than 5454 kg of distributed rice and dal!

4.9.20 – Our friends in Malawi have made the most of every moment to work together to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Since Outreach-affiliated communities are located in rural locations, far from reported cases in the country’s capital, members still have a degree of flexibility in their social interactions than those living in more densely populated areas. Seizing this opportunity to work together and support their neighbors, community-led teams have dedicated themselves to ensuring every household has its own hand-washing station and supply of soap for the weeks ahead.

Hand-washing stations are as simple to build as they are effective when used. Step 1: Acquire buckets. Step 2: Modify buckets to add spigot. That’s it! Of course, Outreach communities are all about follow-through, so the story continues to Step 3: Distribute hand-washing stations and soap to community members, including door-to-door visits from community leaders to make no one was left out. Step 4: Everyone uses their new hand-washing stations regularly, and stays healthy!

Work continues daily on the construction of more hand-washing stations throughout Outreach-affiliated communities in Malawi. So far, 213 have been built and distributed, with more to come.

Community-led efforts in Zambia are currently focused on manufacturing and maintaining hand-washing stations, as well as making sure each station located in communal areas are as easy to use as they are to access. While the plastic containers used for each hand-washing station were donated by a local businessman, the stands can be easily assembled from available wood.

“It may look simple,” says Outreach Zambia facilitator Kennedy, who shared these photos with us, “but it saves lives.”

In a few short weeks, as 128 new stations have been assembled in eight Outreach-affiliated Zambian communities, nearly everyone has a role to play in keeping themselves and their fellow resident safe. Local leaders acquired materials and coordinated the other teams’ efforts — some work to install taps on each plastic container, and others cut wood for stands to replace older, low-hanging stations, which are hard to operate. Everyone else helps where they could and watch closely during demonstrations on best hygienic practices in silent coordination with the rest of their dedicated neighbors.

Additionally, leaders have been visiting homes to ensure each is equipped with its own hand-washing station and a supply of soap. “They are counted as heroes in the community!” says Kennedy. Having seen their great work, we can say confidently that they are counted as heroes worldwide, too.

Community members in Malawi, DR Congo and Zambia have been working steadily for weeks to build, repair and maintain the communal hand-washing stations available in public places throughout their respective villages.

3.30.20 – In Zambia, communities are hard at work building 220 new hand-washing stations over the next few weeks.

In Malawi, work continues on the construction of 798 hand-washing stations. Additionally, community teams have furnished 1,596 bars of soap to 805 households throughout the seven communities in which Outreach works.

To overcome the scarcity of commercially available alcohol-based hand-sanitizer in Africa, teams there have also begun manufacturing their own supply to provide to communities, following the CDC’s recommended recipe.

Some extra good news from Africa: Currently, there are very few reported cases of COVID-19 in Malawi, DR Congo and Zambia, so in many instances, our field teams are still able to visit communities in person to help locals with precautionary efforts, though plans are in place for staff to begin working from home in the coming weeks.