HEALTH: COVID19 INTERVENTION

GPA’s engagement on health system–related actions in these two conflict-affected and fragile regions (NW/SW) is on the bases that; providing information and necessary support to affected communities/people on sensitive health issues is invaluable and; influencing policy is best done all the time, especially in such a complicated conflict situation where the health system is being targeted. Engaging in Health System-Related Actions involves a variety of different activities; however, GPA specializes more in the kinds of activities that are professionally feasible and practicable as well as hospitable to parties involved in the conflict.

Community Mobilization

While advocacy is highly risky in this Anglophone conflict context GPA strategizes in mobilization that is aimed at other people rather than at the conflicting parties. It goes beyond drawing attention to the issue and involves mobilizing affected community people to act through techniques as diverse as petitions, demonstrations, membership drives and social media actions. Mobilization equally involves getting people mitigate the spread of diseases such as Corona virus, frequent cholera attacks and other infectious diseases (especially among IDP populations). In short, it is about changing the minds and actions of ordinary people rather than primarily persuading policymakers-though at times we become more interesting to policymakers as well. Our remarkable mobilization activity was the fight against spread of Covid-19 (demonstrable following).

Disinfection of public facilities against the spread of Covid-19

The North West and South west regions of Cameroon had witnessed school closure since 2017 as a result of the outbreak of the protracted Anglophone Crisis, which targeted schools. While, in 2019 few schools in the centre of Bamenda town and Wum town reopened, their functioning did not last long as the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic brought to a halt to schooling as was the case elsewhere the world at large. The already fragile education situation of the NW region became exacerbated to the immediate concern of UNICEF that led to a partnership with Green Partners Association to carry out an immediate intervention (to mitigate the spread of the pandemic) based on GPA’s existing experience and understanding of the education context and concerns in the NW region. This partnership (Small-Scale Funding Agreement-SSFA) engaged GPA to Mobilise, sensitize, disinfect and monitor the implementation of COVID-19 prevention measures in 54 schools, selected health facilities, markets, religious institutions and major public offices in the Divisions of Mezam (Bamenda 1, Bamenda 2, Bamenda 3) and Menchum (Wum) – North West Region, to mitigate the continuous spread of the virus. 

Scroll to Top