Emergency Community Covid Response

At the beginning of March, Elective surgery in Ethiopia was put on hold due to the Coronavirus. This means that Project Harar is currently unable to mobilize babies and children who need treatment for a cleft lip or palate, or complex facial disfigurement. Project Harar have launched an Emergency Covid Response Programme to run along side our year round outreach and patient identification activities. The communities in which we work are some of the most disadvantaged in Ethiopia, there is no access to running water making key Covid prevention strategies such as regular hand washing extremely difficult to maintain. There are also numerous challenges to spreading health messaging in these areas and because of limited health facilities and equipment these are the communities which will be overwhelmed by the virus if measures are not taken to prevent spread.

Our Covid Response Programme is supported by UK Events Industry charity Meeting Needs and NGO Manos Unidas. The main focus of the Programme is disseminating constructive comprehensive health messaging into remote communities and equiping health officials and residents with effective and accessible PPE such as water barrels and soap, so families have the extra facility to wash their hands in their own home.