Reaching and engaging in the community

Interacting with female community volunteers

Sindhupalchok district is one of the worst-affected areas as a result of the Nepal earthquake on April 25, 2015. Together with Ministry of Health and partners, WHO staff held meetings with the female community health volunteers from the district to hear about their experiences and understand the barriers they were facing in serving the community after the disaster. Currently Nepal has 50,000 health volunteers who crisscross the mountainous country in their distinctive blue saris encouraging communities to protect themselves from disease and risky health behaviour.

Engaging community leaders in the process

WHO staff members distribute relevant materials to religious leaders that could be used during sermons in mosques and churches. Over one hundred religious leaders in Kabala, Sierra Leone attended this dialogue event back in October 2014. Community leaders, including religious leaders as well as tribal chiefs, can play an especially persuasive role in reducing high-risk behaviors.

Reaching and engaging authorities

Nigerian authorities put extra security measures in place to allay fears that Nigerian Muslims making the Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia would spread Ebola. In this photo the head of the Port Health Services, Dr Alex Okoh, addresses the media in September 2014 about the Ebola screening process taking place for the pilgrims at Nigeria’s international airport Hajj Terminal. WHO declared the end of the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria on 20 October 2014 - 3 months after an infected man arrived by airplane into Lagos, Africa’s most populous city. He died 5 days later and set off a chain of transmission that infected 19 people, 7 of whom died.

Listening and responding to concerns

This photo shows WHO staff talking to a child in front of a camp for internally displaced persons during the aftermath of the 2008 Pakistan earthquake. The earthquake hit heavily the remote southwestern province of Baluchistan. WHO and UN partners talked to many people in the affected area to obtain a clearer picture not only of the health needs, but the communications needs, as well. Understanding which telephone lines were cut and which districts had access to satellite phone or radio helped WHO and partners to reach those in need utilizing appropriate information channels.

Emergency communications network

Communications Officer, Tarik Jasarevic, was deployed to Tacloban, the Filipino city hardest hit by Typhoon Haiyan back in November 2013. Information is one of WHO’s four critical functions in emergency response. Tarik is a member the Emergency Communications Network, a multi-disciplinary, rapid response pool of experts from WHO and partner organisations who are ready to deploy and engage with communies during emergency situations within 72 hours of occurrence.

From Ebola survivor to WHO trainer

“I gave medication to a patient in the emergency room but I had no idea that he had the virus. I interacted with him, and later on I found out that he had died of Ebola. From the very moment I heard this, I quickly went to the hospital and I reported myself, informing my colleagues that I’d had contact with an Ebola patient.”

Austin is now a WHO trainer teaching health workers on how to protect themselves and care for Ebola patients.

Working together with partners