Recovery, Renewal, Resilience

Accelerating the use of online digital tools for improved resilience and pandemic preparedness is important for reducing the risk of transmission of the virus, for reaching a wider audience, and for sharing best practice more effectively.

However, when digitizing activities, it is important to consider those who may not have online access due to remoteness, digital illiteracy, and/or the costs of (smart)phones and mobile data, and to ensure important information still reaches these communities. This may be done by adapting activities into written or picture format, or providing necessary resources or training. Consider raising awareness of activities, training, and ways of organising the community:

• Raising awareness:
  • Conduct face-to-face health and hazard awareness programmes through infographics, podcasts, and videos on WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter
  • Use platforms that provide health advice about COVID-19 to raise awareness of other diseases that may have similar symptom e.g. influenza, dengue etc.
  • Use online community engagement as an opportunity to raise awareness about other risks, and resilience strategies e.g. flooding
• Training:
  • Establish 'community brigades' that can help prepare the community for emergency situations - educate and train them by creating and sharing instructional videos
  • Share podcasts promoting COVID-19 safety measures with local leaders and authorities, who play them on loudspeakers in the community
• Organising the community:
  • Develop virtual community networks that support the community to organise themselves, working with local leaders, authorities, schoolteachers etc. who can disseminate information widely
  • Conduct regular follow-up calls with community leaders to create feedback channels and to help monitor local situations