In light
of Covid19 pandemic, which may last from one to one and a half years, NGOs will
also be affected and need to adapt to the work they have to do in a very
different approach than the known development and humanitarian standards.
People live in anxiety and having to deal in an unprecedented way in our lives,
we need a lot of efforts and serious solidarity to confront the epidemic.
Health response
is not enough to deal with the pandemic, because not only the health sector is
not the only aspect impacted, as that extends to all aspects of life.
Therefore,
professional NGOs, nonprofits, civil society organizations, and community
initiatives need to play significant roles in every area of prevention and
response.
Here I
will highlight some of the aspects that NGOs/nonprofits can contribute:
Health Response
1-
Health
facilities: nonprofit organizations
can assist in supporting extra temporary equipped spaces for patients that need
health care, providing operating expenses for a number of health facilities,
providing furniture, medical supplies, and a device, providing material
incentives for health personnel and volunteers, and providing adequate food for
patients and health personnel.
2-
Hire
doctors to provide distant
counseling by phone or on professional platforms for people that need support
on general health conditions or on Covid19.
3-
Health
cadres and volunteers: providing masks and
protective clothing for health cadres and volunteers, and providing monthly
incentives and psycho-social support.
4-
Society: Carrying out behavior change activities that start with remote
awareness and focus on prevention methods, including social divergence, wearing
masks, hygiene and hand washing in a proper manner, and distributing masking
and hygiene materials to poor families or collectively in the targeted
communities.
Water,
Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH)
NGOs
proved to play important roles in the WASH sector during humanitarian crises.
However, the government and society will be very grateful if they are able to
contribute to:
1- Provide more
water to poor families in difficult settings through water trucking.
2- Support
water and sanitation facilities in hospitals and health centers.
3- Support
cleaning and disinfection campaigns led by governments and local authorities.
4- Setting
up extra hand wash stations for families in overcrowded displacement and
refugee camps with inadequate sanitation facilities.
5- Distributing
hygiene kits to displaced people. The kits include sanitary towels, soap,
shampoo and other components as per minimum requirements based on Sphere
standards.
Food and
Livelihoods
1-
Food: Providing conditional or
unconditional cash and food aid.
2-
Livelihoods: People who are forced to
continue their work need to be educated about ways to deal while doing their
work in restaurants, farms, markets, supermarkets or transportation to reduce
the possibility of disease transmission.
3-
In-kind assistance:
distributing in-kind materials and productive tools to poor families, from whom
they can benefit in developing products to improve income, such as sewing or
embroidery tools, cheese and jam materials and tools, and extracting honey in a
manner that prevents transmission.
4-
Direct funding: for
small and medium businesses and startups that are affected by the lockdown and
need bridge funding to survive and continue operating during and right after
the crises.
Protection/Child
Protection
1-
Distant counseling by
phone or online on different protection issues.
2-
Social reconciliation to
improve the situation in each family as all family members are forced to stay
inside the house and this may lead to an increase in domestic violence.
3-
Psychological support by
appropriate means is important for people in need to it, such as those
recovering from Covid19, and for those in contact with them. Psychological
support tools and means are required, and therefore organizations can offer to
purchase and distribute fun games and distribute them to poor families, as they
help them spend enjoyable times, especially in areas where there is no
electricity, television and the Internet.
4-
Cash for Protection:
Financial aid can be distributed to some families to purchase some productive
tools that can be used to train and use them to improve income such as sewing
machines, embroidery tools, and others.
5-
Providing information about
service providers: organizations can collect the information of service
providers and distribute this information to people to help them to communicate
and make sure that the services are available before going there.
Shelter and Housing
Nonprofit organizations can do a lot with regard to the shelter and
housing by preparing special places for people who have been confirmed infected
with the virus as they may not be able to return to their families either in
their home country or those stranded in other countries.
In the shelter, nonprofits may do the following:
6-
Providing temporary places equipped
with housing and cooking utensils that can be used for homeless people and for
people confirmed positive and have to leave home to isolate him/herself from
the family and children, but the symptoms are mild and do not need
hospitalization.
7-
Cash for rent for people who have lost their jobs and are unable to pay rent.
8-
Distributing the housing and kitchen utensils among the tools that the stranded people need in their residence,
such as blankets, mattresses, pillows, gas cylinders, cooking utensils and
catering.
9-
Distributing
clothes to the homeless, elderly
or poor families who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic.
Education
NGOs could work with social
entrepreneurs in many countries to provide solutions that help children to
continue learning even when staying at home. This could be done in many ways.
1- Provide assistance to teachers to continue online
teaching by making videos or directly by using available online distance
teaching/learning tools.
2- Encourage parents to teach their children at home during the lockdown and
follow up with the schools and teachers.
3- Develop new interactive teaching and learning tools.
Media and Advocacy
NGOs could provide support to improve
awareness on social media and help to combat fake news and awareness messages
through:
1- Train
social media influencers
online and encourage them to talk about social distancing and the best
practices based on stories.
2- Produce
quality content
through blogs, videos, and success stories of Covid19 survivors, medical
professionals and social initiatives that helped in combating the pandemic and
share them of their websites and social media outlets.