Covid-19

COVID-19

Pact and our partners are adapting our programming around the world to meet the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic is among the most pressing global health challenges of modern times. Besides the medical crisis that Covid-19 presents, the virus is upending livelihoods, markets and economies, restricting movement and intensifying complex social problems such as gender-based and family violence, health care inequality and more. The pandemic's impact for vulnerable communities in low-income countries will reverberate for many years to come.

An effective response – one that reaches those most at risk – includes collaboration among citizens, community-serving organizations, local and national governments and the private sector. Pact and our local partners are leveraging our relationships with communities to aid the implementation of solutions for this response. As an international NGO at work in dozens of countries, Pact serves vulnerable communities and builds local solutions and systems with local stakeholders. Pact’s multi-disciplinary teams facilitate community response in health, economic empowerment, governance, private sector partnerships and more. We are delivering practical, innovative community-based interventions to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and mitigate its many consequences.

What We Do

Support local partners and community volunteers – Pact projects around the globe are training implementing partners and community volunteers to educate populations at the household and community level to stop the spread of Covid-19. We are also helping partners to create business continuity plans to manage administration and operations to weather the pandemic.

Risk communication and stakeholder engagement for community preparedness – We are delivering accurate, timely information on Covid-19 prevention, risk and response through fact sheets distributed by community cadres in local languages, social media, SMS, WhatsApp, specially designed mobile apps, local radio and more. We are leveraging our relationships with stakeholder groups and trusted media channels as well as our vast experience in behavior change communication.

Support community health platforms for continued health service delivery – Pact is sustaining health and social service delivery for vulnerable children and youth and their caregivers. This involves refining delivery modalities to incorporate distancing, modifying household visits and pivoting to virtual support. We have strengthened ties between community stakeholders such as neighborhood health committees and community health workers, and have helped integrate tele-health and tele-counseling solutions. Pact-supported mobile clinics are providing community-based refills of ART for people living with HIV and family planning methods to help decongest health facilities.

Promote gender and child protection – Covid-19 has exacerbated domestic violence, and protection of vulnerable women and children from violence is part of our response. Pact projects are drawing upon trusted relationships with CBOs to share messages to address the vulnerability that Covid-19 has placed on women around the world, along with materials to foster child protection. We have supported awareness raising campaigns, support hotlines, shelters, legal services and more. We are also mapping and strengthening referrals via service providers for health and child protection and augmenting local capacity to identify at-risk families and link them to services.

Rural outreach with Covid-19 prevention information – Pact’s community health systems work has helped form structures to support the Covid-19 response, including water infrastructure and hygiene training. From Tanzania to Myanmar, our outreach is supporting prevention activities such as handwashing and primary health care services.

Economic support for families and businesses – Through existing support programs for women entrepreneurs, we are providing Covid-specific support to help small business owners adapt to and weather the pandemic. We have also provided direct cash transfers for vulnerable families.

The latest data on the pandemic from the World Health Organization is available here. Information on how you can stop the spread of coronavirus is here.

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