Responding to COVID-19
#everydayheroes Taking Action
In this post we put the focus on our work to date in combating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
From the COVID task force and administration teams behind the scenes to the frontline social workers and ChildSafe Agents within communities, our #everydayheroes have been working tirelessly in prevention, protection and support, responding to COVID-19 and looking beyond the pandemic to build better futures for those affected.
Awareness, Prevention and Protection
From March to May of this year, Friends Alliance staff in our programs in Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Indonesia and Myanmar worked alongside almost 800 specially trained ChildSafe Agents to reach over 14,000 people in the communities where we work with awareness and resources on how to protect themselves from COVID-19 and prevent the spread of the disease.
Emergency Support
We brought help to over 1,000 highly vulnerable families (in total, more than 4,000 people) who received the specific emergency support they needed, such as food, rent and hygiene supplies.
Helping High Risk Populations
We provided over 194,000 targeted services, including condom distribution, harm reduction materials and counseling to high-risk members of the population such as drug users and sex workers.
Ensuring Education
We made sure that over 600 children who had difficulty in accessing education due to school closures were able to do so remotely, and were supported by our teachers in doing this. For children from families without internet, we organized safe access to online teaching at our drop-in centers, and homework distribution alongside teacher support within communities.
ChildSafe – Local and International
Lockdown brought additional risks to children – ChildSafe Agents responded to over 670 Hotline calls during this period, and resulting interventions from these protected 44 children. A total of 1,263 persons were protected through the actions of ChildSafe Agents during this time.
We shifted the focus of our global ChildSafe campaigns onto families, to provide a range of support during lockdown and beyond. We created and distributed specific materials for children on staying safe during the pandemic. Our new ChildSafe Families campaigns reached almost a quarter of a million people in the three months from March to May 2020.
Building Futures
We continued to look to the future, and to plan with our communities to build better futures for them in a time of economic uncertainty for so many – our Futures teams provided 123 young people and caretakers with employment skills or placement into jobs over those three months, and pioneered online trainings to meet restrictions on group meetings.
Many challenges have been overcome, of course many still remain in responding to COVID-19, but we want to take this opportunity to highlight the progress the #everydayheroes of Friends-international have made, continuing to save lives and build futures in the face of the pandemic, and to thank you, our friends and supporters for your invaluable contribution to this achievement.
You can find an in-depth summary report of this work available to read/download at this link
