All around the world, CARE is doing its best to stop the spread of COVID-19. We’re providing information, investing in businesses, delivering clean water and food, and supporting health workers.
Here are just some examples of the work being done in these areas:
Providing information
We’ve already reached 2 million people with up to-date information and instructions about best hygiene practices like correct hand-washing. We’re doing this every way we can: by text messages, with boomboxes strapped to cars and bicycles, and in cooperation with governments and community leaders. This has been vitally important in densely populated refugee camps like in Dadaab in Kenya and Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.
Investing in businesses
With markets closing and businesses being forced into lockdown, people’s incomes are dropping at an unsustainable rate. CARE is supporting people through this period with the distribution of emergency cash supplies. In Niger we are using mobile cash transfers to help women in rural areas access money to keep their businesses afloat. In Ecuador we are reaching urban street vendors with cash transfers through ATMs – they don’t need a card, just a pin code which allows them to withdraw money for food and medicine.
Clean water and food
Maybe the most critical need for good hygiene and hand-washing is clean water.
CARE has reached 600,000 people with hygiene kits to make sure they have access to soap and materials to help stop the spread.
And we have installed and repaired almost 23,000 taps so nearly 397,000 people have access to clean water to wash their hands. This is especially crucial in areas where we will be distributing supplies like cash or food.
In The Philippines CARE has been safely buying more than 9,000 fresh food packs of locally grown vegetables from farmers outside cities and delivering them to people in urban areas where mobility and markets are restricted every week. In Haiti we are supplying food vouchers to poor households who are stuck in self-isolation. In Mozambique we are delivering seeds for the agricultural season.
Supporting health workers
In Sudan, CARE is helping ensure health centers have enough masks, gloves, and other supplies they need to respond to an outbreak. In Bangladesh, Philippines, and Somalia, we are working with the governments to ensure healthcare workers get the sanitation supplies they need.
In India, CARE is working with the government in Bihar to prepare for a response. In Somalia, CARE has trained more than 300 healthcare workers to understand how to prevent and react to COVID-19. The team in Palestine is working with partners to train medical teams in preventing an outbreak. In Mozambique we are rehabilitating health centers.
