Community Partners International's intrepid Fecal Sludge Management team, aka the Sludgebusters, play a vital if unglamorous role keeping latrines safe and hygienic in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
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.
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.
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.
On March 24, Myanmar announced its first two confirmed cases of COVID-19. The day before, with the supply of hand sanitizer diminishing rapidly and the retail price rising fourfold in a short period of time, Community Partners International (CPI)'s Myanmar team started to produce it in their office in Yangon. It was already clear that the network of community-based clinics and health workers serving hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in displacement camps, remote communities and urban slums across Myanmar would struggle to source sufficient quantities of hand sanitizer to meet their needs. By sourcing the raw materials early, and producing it themselves, CPI's Myanmar team planned to help bridge the gap and reduce the spread of COVID-19.
On April 3, the basement of Community Partners International (CPI)'s office in Yangon was converted into a packing station to prepare packages of essential medical supplies for 180 clinics across Myanmar. The packages will help clinics to bridge gaps in essential needs and replenish medicine stocks for the coming two to three months as part of COVID-19 preparedness.
Community Partners International's founder and Board Chair Dr. Tom Lee is an Emergency Room Physician working on the front lines of the COVID-19 response in Los Angeles. In this blog post, he reflects on the challenges he has seen in the last few weeks as the U.S. struggles to cope with the COVID-19 outbreak, and shares his concerns about the potential impact of the pandemic on countries with fragile health systems like Myanmar and Bangladesh.
"There is a tendency during times like these to look inwards – to our families and to ourselves. But we must also continue to look outwards – to our friends, our communities, our country and the world." Somudah and her family have been living as refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, since September 2017, after fleeing violence in Myanmar. The family is one of many thousands in Cox’s Bazar served by CPI’s Community Health Volunteer program and other services. To mark the second anniversary of the Rohingya Refugee Crisis, we spoke to Somudah about the difficulties she and her family have faced over the past two years, and her hopes for the future.
On World Humanitarian Day, Community Partners International (CPI) is mobilizing to support communities in Mon State, Myanmar, affected by severe flooding. Between August 16 and 18, CPI staff traveled with members of the Bo Bo Win Emergency Rescue Foundation from the Myanmar Health CSO Network (Mon State) to five flooded villages Kyaikmaraw Township to distribute packs of rice to 625 households. CPI also distributed water purification tablets and instruction pamphlets provided by the Mon State Health Department.
We hear from two Rohingya first responders, Rihana and Rohima, about their work to help communities in Kutupalong Refugee Camp, Bangladesh during emergencies.
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April 2024
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