Coronavirus Prevention – Scenes from the Front Line
Above, Thoraya, one of our literacy workers, during a Covid-19 awareness session for women of our literacy circles in April. As well as providing masks and sanitizer, our key work is to explain and distribute prevention literature for our participants, their families and the local community.Read an interview with Thoraya, one of our many inspiring literacy workers who have volunteered to undertake Covid-19 outreach work, in A Tribute to Our Trainers
Our outreach work focuses on our literacy participants’ communities in Jebel Aulia, Wad Bashir, Dar aSalaam, El Fatih in Karari, Umbadda and Hajj Jusif.
We work with communities who have no running water and little or no health infrastructure. Above, getting the message out: a Covid-19 prevention poster stuck to the barrel of the local water seller’s donkey-drawn cart. We help put up and display posters throughout the communities we work with.
Above too, children in the communities where we provide literacy and orphans schooling support with the Ministry of Health Covid-19 awareness posters we help distribute.Sudan has a 10% mortality rate for those contracting the virus. This is amongst the highest in the world. None of the communities we work with had received any Covid-19 prevention outreach before our visits.
See too Coronavirus – Our Prevention Work
Scenes from our Covid-19 Prevention Outreach Work
This blogpost is dedicated to the courage and dedication of our staff as they carry out vital and dangerous Covid-19 prevention work among the most vulnerable communities in Khartoum.
This work includes house to house outreach.
Women play a key role in ensuring the health of their families and the whole community. See Coronavirus Sudan Stepping Back from the Abyss 4 for the impact of Covid-19 on women and girls in Sudan.
Above, working together with our national partner, we travel to the most deprived communities in Khartoum, giving practical Covid-19 prevention guidance. Lockdown affects the poorest hardest. See Coronavirus Sudan Stepping Back from the Abyss 3 – Lockdown
Above, Dr. Leila Bashir, our local partner and colleague, welcoming women to the awareness sessions. “Dr. Leila and WEP welcomed the women and after a briefing on the pandemic, facilitators went through the Ministry of Health prevention posters, protective material was distributed and provision made for those who were unable to attend.”
Our literacy facilitators, university volunteers and local partner are committed to making sure every community we work with has reliable and practical life-saving guidance on how to prevent Covid-19 and to follow up on our work with them. This means adopting measures that take into account the realities of everyday life in Khartoum’s poorest areas. Read about the health context in Sudan in Coronavirus in Sudan – Stepping Back from the Abyss
And the economic realities in Coronavirus in Sudan Stepping Back from the Abyss Part 2
One of our Covid-19 prevention volunteers and Afhad University undergraduate, Shahad Ameer, working with our literacy participants.
“The beneficiaries were coming on their own initiative and had a huge interest in what was explained by our literacy workers and discussed what they were doing and what new information they learnt. They all said they would pass the information to their families and the people around them.
Left, Mrs. Salma, one of our literacy staff, explains when and how to disinfect hands using sanitizer.
Our literacy worker, Mrs. Sumia, explaining Covid-19 prevention to women of our literacy circles, shown with materials ready for distribution.
“They talked of being completely ignorant about what is going on. They did not know the serious health situation, as they do not watch TV as the area is not supplied with electricity and they said they stopped listening to the radio as the cost of batteries was prohibitive.”One of our literacy workers, reporting on what we find time and time again when doing outreach.
Women from some of the communities we work with in our literacy program, with the masks and sanitizers we have provided. In Wad Bashir and Dar aSalaam, 195 women alone received masks, sanitizers and awareness training.
Materials ready for distribution among three of our literacy circles.This is a literacy post for Women’s Education Partnership. See At a Glance for more on our mission and impact. For the economic impact of Covid-19 on Sudan, see Coronavirus in Sudan Stepping Back from the Abyss Part 2
We have already funded our Covid-19 awareness and relief work but please consider giving to our life-changing literacy work. It is never more needed than now. Just click on the link below to donate quickly and securely:
Women's literacy in Sudan 