COVID-19: Communicating and engaging with communities remotely through outreach
World Vision in Papua New Guinea is an organization that is already promoting hygiene, sanitation, and TB awareness in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea in support of the requested of the Western Province COVID-19 Provincial Taskforce to promote community awareness on the disease.
Papua New Guinea is one of the few countries, with a low number of COVID-19 confirmed cases, World Vision has adopted three mechanisms of delivery of information to the public:
- Awareness through church congregations which was conducted in a church leadership seminar, church congregation sessions;
- Awareness through community leader’s workshop and open community awareness sessions; and
- Placement of community notice boards in strategic locations where communication materials on COVID-19 from the national level are posted so that community members can easily access them.
After getting empowered with the information shared, church leaders and community leaders have now taken the initiative to spread information further to their congregations and community members, respectively. The information has also empowered community leaders to enforce preventive measures, including social distancing, installing handwashing facilities, and recommending that redundant residents on the island town return to their villages.
The COVID-19 awareness sessions were also conducted for the business houses in Western Province to encourage them to social distance on their premises and set up hygiene stations for handwashing to be socially responsible to the community and their customers.
Papua New Guinea has some of the world’s most challenging rugged terrain. World Vision delivers to some of the remotest communities, in Papua New Guinea, reaching some of the countries' most vulnerable children within these remote communities. World Vision staff remain truly committed and dedicated to servicing these remote communities and people through our programmes.
Western Province is a border province and the most northern tip of Australia is a two-hour boat ride from Daru, the capital. The province is challenging in its terrain and landscape, and many rivers and tributaries. Some parts of the province are only accessible by boat.