Welcome to the seventh issue of the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub News Bulletin. We’ve got two case studies for you this week - you can read how Development Media International is using radio to reach 20 million people across Burkina Faso or Gram Vaani Community Media is reaching rural populations through Interactive Voice Response (IVR) in India! If you would like to share your project, or have a question on behaviour change or anything in your COVID-19 programme, we encourage you to get in touch. As ever, you can also learn about the most frequently asked questions we have had over the last two weeks and the range of new resources available for COVID-19 response below.
Areas of Technical Support
Common enquiries this past week included:
How do we safely promote the use of fabric masks?
Please see our resource article updated with the latest evidence on masks and fabric masks here
How can we update or adapt our behaviour change programme at this stage of the pandemic?
Read this guide on the process of designing behaviour change programmes here.
What hygiene promotion activities can be done on a small budget?
Check here for five ideas to promote handwashing.
New resources
In response to web enquiries and discussions with partner organisations, we have continued to develop and revise our resource documents on a range of topics related to COVID-19 response.
Resources we have updated with new evidence this and last week include:
Want to access other resources or these resources in other languages? Click here
If you have requests or ideas for future resources, please email us at support@hygienehub.info.
COVID-19 response: project highlights
This week, we have two case studies to share with you. First is Development Media International who have created 24 one-minute radio spots on COVID-19. These are being broadcast over 6 months from May to October 2020 by 39 radio stations across Burkina Faso. Broadcasts are 10 times a day and at peak listening times. The spots are each translated and produced in 10 local languages. They include messages encouraging specific behaviours, which are based on the Burkina Faso Ministry of Health’s COVID response plan, and developed with advice from World Health Organisation Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (WHO GOARN) and Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).
To support the radio spots, an animation was produced to visually explain how reducing social contact slows the spread of COVID-19. The animation has been dubbed into French and 3 local languages to date. It has been distributed via social media by the Ministry of Health’s Facebook page and has received over 6 million views as of 14th July. It will also be shown on national television.
Using animation to explain physical distancing in Burkina Faso
Our second case study is from Gram Vaani Community Media. Gram Vaani means ‘voice of the village’ and they have developed a mobile-phone based platform called ‘Mobile Vaani’, designed to be an equivalent to social media but for rural populations who may not have access to smartphones and digital technologies. Mobile Vaani uses an intelligent IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system that allows people to call a number and leave a message about their community, or listen to messages left by others. It was created prior to the pandemic, but they have scaled up their services so that this platform can act as a means of informing and providing relief to hard-to-reach communities.
Adapting their programme for COVID-19, their messages aim to:
Improve community awareness and counter misinformation
Capture community experiences and impact of COVID-19 on economic and social wellbeing
Provide a COVID-19 self-assessment for people to discuss their symptoms over the phone
Connect the community to a wide range of partners or assistanceImage: A map of India showing where Mobile Vaani is being used as part of COVID-19 response.
Image: A map of India showing where Mobile Vaani is being used as part of COVID-19 response.
Webinars
In the last weeks we have been providing a series of webinars, co-hosted with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), on outcome & process evaluations, designing information, education and communication (IEC) materials and community engagement at a distance. Links to all of the webinars can be found here and will be updated with new webinars each month.