Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, WASH Sector partners have been increasing household-level distribution to help in reducing the risk of COVID-19 transmission among Rohingya community by limiting the number of people gathering at distribution points.
Morium Khatun, who is one of the beneficiaries of this initiative and living in Camp 14, shared her positive experience with this new support method. She explained, “It’s wonderful to receive material right at my doorstep, it ensures my safety and it saves my time and effort of waiting at distribution points.”
“It’s wonderful to receive material right at my doorstep, it ensures my safety and it saves my time and effort of waiting at distribution points.”
Household-level distributions are also an opportunity to reach every family with awareness raising sessions on hygiene promotion and behavior change, focused on COVID-19 protection and mitigation.
This approach enhances the inclusion and engagement of community members such as women, adolescents, older persons, persons with disabilities and pregnant women who seldom go to distribution points. “Through this type of distribution, community can avoid gathering at distribution points. I maintain hygiene and distance during distribution. It ensures safety of my community and myself,” said Dilder Hossain one of the Rohingya Community-Based Volunteers (CBV) working with BRAC in Camp 14 in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh.
Rohingya Community-Based Volunteers (CBV) are assisting with distributions in the camps together at times with Imams, Majhis, and various WASH partner staff. Recent studies have found that 86% of Rohingya households could recall at least 3 measures to protect themselves and others from COVID-19 transmission (IOM, June 2020).
This indicates the efficiency of the approach and all households have received soaps at least twice every two months as per standard, since the beginning of the outbreak (WASH Sector, June 2020).
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