By David Simon
The COVID-19 pandemic has led us to marvel as a global society; In addition to overwhelming our health care systems, he challenged us as social beings. It made us fail to embrace, taught us in new ways, to relate, to prioritize, to unite, and to reinvent our way of working.
As head of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) at UNICEF Venezuela, I am running with my team to put in position answers to help us reduce the threat of contagion, despite the circumstances.
Since the first day of quarantine, we have been implementing key hand-saving measures, such as hand-washing education, the delivery of hygiene and sanitation supplies, and techniques to prevent intrahospital infections in approximately 180 gyms.
Part of the UNICEF team moved to western Táchira state to rehabilitate pumping systems and factories that supply chlorinated water to the population, as we do in others. regions of the country.
Saying “stay home” or “going to the hospital” has many implications for the most vulnerable people. Often, leaving space is the only way to have soap and water. For frontline staff and help staff, nurses and doctors, staying at home is an option.
In mid-May, I traveled by road to the state of Chira, about 800 kilometers from Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, to help colleagues in the local workplace and our reaction to give communities, shelters, schools and fitness services access to water. sanitation and hygiene.
It is essential to move to the field, obtain first-hand data and paintings as a team, and it is also admirable to see how, despite all the difficulties, doctors, nurses and social staff remain committed to finding viable answers. For me, sharing with these other people is essential to understand desires and define together the answers that can be painted.
In the field of humanitarian communication, we aim at the efforts of social workers, doctors, water suppliers, authorities, families and others, who in their eyes their resilience is impressive. I keep thinking about stories and fighting this resilience.
Part of the good fortune and duty of our paintings lies in the correct understanding of the situation, needs, social norms, barriers and the definition of appropriate solutions. Lessons learned from similar contexts or other types of humanitarian crises allow us to link data and truth to imaginable solutions.
We want to build a solution based on the wisdom and faith of the other people we paint with, combined with our own experience.
On the ground, we can see that fundamental desires are in each and every corner, in each and every one and every conversation, in each and every look. Places such as hospitals, hostels and schools. You have to have soap and water. Our projects are implemented according to the location of the roads, the will and the connections that create the maximum significant effect in the shortest time.
From the beginning I worked with my colleagues in the box in Chira to promote the implementation of COVID-19 prevention projects, we have been running to get more water and more soap where it is needed and we are also working on repairing and maintaining the infrastructure, that will allow more sustainable solutions.
This also took me twice to Guasdualito, in the state of Apure on the border with Colombia, as a border town, Guasdualito is a center of movement and cultural and advertising exchange, in addition to the demanding situations that exist such as water, fitness, protection, schooling and nutrition, the reaction to the pandemic has required the opening of hostels of transitoryness where Venezuelans returning from across the border can spend time in quarantine.
In shelters, UNICEF targets maternal and child health care and promotes dignity and equality. To do this, UNICEF works with its partners to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions.
I have had many conversations with parents, children, teenagers and painters, they are very involved about when the COVID-19 pandemic will let them pass from home and how long they will have to stay in the shelters. every case, there’s a story. And every story, every situation, every number has to be heard and treated. Our duty as humanitarian cooperation professionals is to produce changes, paintings beyond the numbers and percentages of those stories.
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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) works in more than 190 countries and territories to save children. UNICEF has helped save more children’s lives. . .
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) paints in more than 190 countries and territories to save and protect children. UNICEF has helped save the lives of more children than any other humanitarian organization by providing emergency assistance, physical care and vaccines, safe water and sanitation, nutrition, education, and more. UNICEF USA supports UNICEF paintings through fundraising, advocacy and education in the United States. Together, we paint for the day when no child dies for preventable reasons and each and every child has a physical state and a childhood. Read more: https://www. unicefusa. org