CEF-Help and OTEPIC have launched an action for basic protection against COVID-19 Pandemic in the Mitume district of Kitale city. Five washing and information stations with a small tent, water tanks, soap and disinfectant will be set up. For this purpose a fundraising campaign was started on betterplace.
Clear water and clear information in pandemic times
When the pandemic arrives in a poor, densely populated region, two essential things are usually missing: clean water for washing hands and basic hygiene information. Support our hand washing and information stations! Mitume, in the northwest of Kenya, with its approx. 15.000 inhabitants, from whose middle the self-help and permaculture project OTEPIC emerged 12 years ago, is such a place. A large percentage of the inhabitants live in slums or near the poverty line, often malnourished and without access to clean water and school education. In Kenya, the complete shut-down of all public life has now been declared. And of course, places like Mitume are particularly hard hit.
Clear Water
Philip Munyasia and his OTEPIC comunity are, as so often, in the first place to help. With fresh water from OTEPIC’s deep wells, they have now started to set up temporary hand washing stations, so that the simplest and most important rule of hygiene can be observed. At prominent places in Mitume up to five washing and information stations with a small tent, water tanks, soap and disinfectant will be set up. Together with Philip Munyasia we have expanded the concept and added an information section.
Clear information
In order to counter rumours and fake news, it is just as important to disseminate essential hygiene information. By means of posters and leaflets with text and infographics and an accompanying person at the tents, we want to inform especially people who, for example, cannot read themselves. For further distribution, word-of-mouth propaganda of this information should also work well.
References
Text and photos: CEF-Help, Club of Engineers and Friends e.V., Berlin, 2020