As the COVID-19 pandemic has placed increased pressure on health systems, newly-graduated young doctors around the world have stepped up and shouldered responsibility beyond their years and experience in order to provide care to people in need. This is particularly true in countries with fragile and under-resourced health systems like Bangladesh.
It's well known that singing can have health benefits, and dancing too. However, a group of health providers in Myanmar is taking this a step further – singing and dancing for everyone’s health.
At a recent webinar organized by Community Partners International, speakers from ethnic and community-based organizations in Myanmar’s Rakhine and Kayin States emphasized that cooperation is essential to an effective COVID-19 response.
On Global Handwashing Day (October 15), a mobile school bus supported by Community Partners International (CPI) visited children living in slum communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh, to educate them about hand hygiene and distribute hygiene kits.
An Epidemic Within a Pandemic: Safeguarding Myanmar's Newborns From Hepatitis B During COVID-197/27/2020
"We have a real opportunity here to push back hepatitis B. With the right approach, we can free a generation of children in Myanmar from this debilitating and deadly virus.” Seven years ago, Khin Aye went for a routine prenatal check-up while pregnant with her first child. The hospital staff conducted a blood test. “When the test came back, they told me I had hepatitis B.”
"We hope that Rohingya children feel happy seeing our cards and that they think, ‘I received this. There are others out there who care for me.’"
These are the words of Faryal Asim, 14. To mark World Refugee Day, Faryal and a group of friends from Houston, Texas, designed cards expressing their solidarity and support for Rohingya children from Myanmar living as refugees in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. Faryal and her friends are members of families who have supported Community Partners International (CPI)'s Rohingya Refugee Response since the beginning of the refugee crisis in August 2017. "After hearing what they were going through we decided to make cards for them to make sure they know to stay brave and courageous and to not give up," Faryal explains.
In Myanmar’s restive and remote Naga Self-Administered Zone (SAZ), there are only two medical doctors to serve the needs of an estimated 130,000 people. In April 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic threatening communities across Myanmar, Community Partners International (CPI) supported local civil society organization the Eastern Naga Development Organization (ENDO) to raise awareness of COVID-19 risks and prevention measures in 108 remote villages in five townships: Lahe, Leshi and Nanyun in the Naga SAZ, and the neighboring townships of Hkamti and Pansaung.
The front room of Hla Hla Htwe’s home in Pyapon, Ayeyarwady Region, is a hive of activity. Family members are busy cutting fabric, sewing, washing, and ironing on a makeshift production line. They are making cloth face masks to help prevent the transmission of COVID-19. “On a good day, we can produce about 100 masks,” Hla Hla Htwe says. She and her family are part of a Community Partners International (CPI) initiative to help vulnerable families and communities who have lost work due to COVID-19 to generate income through mask making.
"I don’t know what I would do without this opportunity. I was afraid that no one would help me in these hard times."
Community Partners International (CPI)’s Myanmar team has been busy supporting conflict-affected, hard-to-reach and under-served communities across Myanmar to establish and maintain COVID-19 prevention and response activities. Here are some of the ways that CPI has been mobilizing to help our ethnic and community-based health organization partners in the past few weeks.
In a new song and animated video supported by Community Partners International (CPI), and released on April 9, Myanmar music stars Wine Su Khine Thein and Ni Ni Khin Zaw urge people in Myanmar to stay home to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The video can be viewed on Facebook here.
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May 2024
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