9th May, 2020
ActionAid Nigeria has embarked on awareness creation and sensitization campaign in Kogi to strengthen rural community groups against Coronavirus pandemic
Mr Anicetus Atakpu, ActionAid Resilience Programmes Coordinator, said Saturday that the exercise would cover over 36,000 inhabitants in the state.
Atakpu was speaking during a Door-to-Door COVID-19 Precautionary Awareness Campaign and strengthening of Community facilitators in Koton-Karfe community, Kogi-KK Local Government area.
He said that although there was no recorded positive case of coronavirus in Kogi, ActionAid had continued its public awareness campaign and sensitization at the grassroots in view of the daily increase in the number of cases across the country.
Atakpu said that the programme was in pursuance of the System and Structure Strengthening Approach against Radicalization to Violent Extremism (SARVE II) Project being implemented in Kogi and Nasarawa states and funded by Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF).
“A week ago when the sensitisation campaign was launched in Kogi state, ActionAid Nigeria identified huge gaps of misinformation, misconceptions and lack of preparedness by community groups and members.
“This informed its decision to commence an awareness campaign as a way of complementing the state government’s efforts, especially as some hoodlums had leveraged on the situation to perpetrate violence in communities across the country.
“ActionAid Nigeria is taking a proactive step in this regard to ensure that residents of Kogi state, particularly our project beneficiaries, are properly sensitised, informed and united to prevent and combat the deadly coronavirus,’’ he said.
He said that ActionAid, in collaboration with Participation Initiative for Behavioural Change In Development (PIBCID), had engaged community facilitators and established Community Action And Response Teams (CART) members to reach out to the communities.
“Our target is to reach over 36,000 community inhabitants, especially our SARVE II project communities, the most vulnerable while prioritising women, children, nursing mothers and the elderly,’’ he said.
Speaking in the same vein, Ms Halima Sadiq, Executive Director, PIBCID, ActionAid’s Local Rights Partners in Kogi, urged the facilitators to promote handwashing and other hygienic practices using their local dialect.
She urged them to place emphasis on debunking wrong messages and myths around the virus, saying that COVID-19 was no respecter of persons, not a rich man’s disease and can not be cured through drinking of dry gin (Ogogoro) and alcohol as erroneously believed in some quarters.
The Ohimege of Koton-Karfe, Alhaji Abdulrazaq Isa-Koto, represented by his Chief of Staff, Mallam Adamu Wokili, promised to ensure the success of the campaign by engaging in house-to-house and village-to-village sensitization.
The monarch expressed gratitude to God for keeping the state safe.