North East Regional Initiative: A Lasting Legacy

those they already know and trust, NERI recruited hundreds of women and trained them as health volunteers to help disseminate information. Donning masks, the women went to thousands of homes to inform residents about the virus, its symptoms and how it is spread. They provided kits with soap, hand sanitizer and masks, and they demonstrated proper handwashing techniques and safe methods for containing sneezes and coughs. They left the families with fliers about taking precautions, including wearing masks, avoiding gatherings, staying home as much as possible and practicing physical distancing. This information was also posted on 13 billboards throughout area communities. Through these efforts, nearly a half- million Nigerians in nearly 600 communities received crucial COVID-19-awareness information. Moreover, NERI spread the word to countless others through the use of public address systems and announcements on radio stations. They further set up more than 500 handwashing stations and equipped five isolation centers to help contain potential outbreaks. NERI also helped organize a campaign to provide supplies and compensation to local women, many of whom are widows, to sew masks to be distributed to residents. By August 2020, the women made more than 150,000 masks. These masks were distributed to the state governments, the Nigeria Police Force and the Borno State Ministry of Education. NERI’s rapid pivot to support the Nigerian government’s effort to combat COVID-19 in the Northeast helped to educate and protect its citizens from the ravages of this contagious disease.

NERI undertook two major activities in Borno’s Monguno LGA to raise awareness of COVID-19 and track its spread. NERI trained more than 150 volunteers on care, response and management, active surveillance, contact tracing, case investigation and reporting protocols. Separately, NERI and state health officials organized a 15-day door-to-door awareness campaign across the 12 wards and 11 schools/IDP camps. Fifty volunteers reached almost 7,000 households and 43,500 individuals to educate the community on modes of transmission, signs and symptoms, and ways to avoid contracting COVID-19.

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