This project aims to lessen the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on poor and marginalized communities in targeted areas of Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Aligned with national pandemic response plans, this project works to help reduce the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable people, particularly women and girls, by increasing the capacity of health care centers, health care workers, and communities to prevent and respond to the pandemic. Project activities include: (1) providing training to facility- and community-based health workers to better identify and respond to COVID-19; (2) providing health centers with essential hygiene and sanitation supplies, including locally-procured personal protective equipment; (3) raising awareness about COVID-19 prevention and safe hygiene and sanitation practices among community members; (4) increasing access to essential hygiene and sanitation supplies at the household level; and (5) strengthening community-based sexual and gender-based violence prevention and response mechanisms. This project expects to directly benefit 59,000 women, girls, men, and boys in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. This project also expects to indirectly benefit an additional 1,075,000 women, men, girls and boys.
Results achieved as of September 2020 include: (1) training was provided to 144 facility-based health care workers on the prevention and management of COVID-19; (2) training was provided to 649 community-based health care workers and 170 community health entrepreneurs on COVID-19 response; (3) soap was provided to 1,554 households in Mozambique; (4) over 62,000 hygiene and sanitation products were distributed to health facilities in Zambia; and (5) household visits and community meetings on the topic of sexual and gender-based violence were organized in Mozambique and Zambia, which were attended by 5,539 people.
