COVID-19: Communicating and engaging with communities remotely through online platforms

According to the 2020 first-quarter financial results issued by Tencent (the developer of WeChat, a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media, and mobile payment app), there are 1.2 billion active WeChat accounts (this includes domestic and foreign users of the App). In our project areas, most of the community members are also WeChat users. In their daily life, they use WeChat quite a lot. Therefore, WeChat is an ideal channel to share health messages in China, considering its wide coverage and accessibility.

Since WeChat is vastly used in China, World Vision utilised the platform to disseminate messages quickly and with ease. While developing the content, priority was given to consistency and accuracy according to guidelines provided by the government, which is easy to understand by children and is reader-friendly. After the online posts were published, WV staff shared the WeChat posts with the local community facilitators and gave them guidance to forward the online posts to local groups of teachers, students, and parents. In our project areas, most of the community members are also WeChat users. Therefore, WeChat is an ideal channel to share health messages in China considering its wide coverage and accessibility.

In the week of 24 – 28 February 2020, we started a promotion week called "Prevent the Outbreak Together" to share messages on COVID-19 prevention. In the week of 2 – 6 March, several WeChat posts were published to promote mental health and psychosocial support for children and their families amid the disease outbreak. WV staff shared the WeChat posts with the local community facilitators ("facilitators" refer to community volunteers assisting WV to carry out activities in the local communities) and guided them to forward the online posts to local teacher groups and parent groups. As of June 2020, the accumulative views of all online posts posted by World Vision China was nearly 57,145.

World Vision China promoted a series of COVID-19 related messages (including COVID-19 prevention knowledge and mental health and psychosocial support) via the WeChat platform. AP staff forwarded the online posts to local teacher groups and parent groups. Before the promotion week, there were only about 5100 WeChat users who subscribed World Vision China official WeChat account, now the number of subscribers has increased to 9279..

"One child said that she learned how to wash hands correctly while another child said that he learned how to wear a mask correctly.  Parents also gave very encouraging and positive feedback about preventive messaging shared via social media. They got to know the characteristics of COVID-19 and some good ways to prevent the outbreak like staying at home to protect themselves," says Zhaolan, WV China staff.