Civil society hailed for work done during Covid-19
Civil society has been hailed for its work during the global Covid-19 pandemic.
Amid the pandemic, civil society organisations stepped up, providing frontline help and defending the rights of people across the world.
Global alliance group Civicus released a detailed report on Thursday showing how civil society supplemented governments’ efforts by providing financial aid, personal protective gear and psychosocial support to communities across the globe.
The report shows that “throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, civil society demonstrated resilience, creativity and adaptability”.
Civicus senior research specialist Inés Pousadela says NGOs, citizens and activists have played a key role in the battle against the pandemic.
“The key to our analysis is that we tried to reflect the voices of a wide variety of civil society and citizen actors, just trying to show how much agency and collective power is in civil society and how civil society is filling in the gaps that the state and the market are not covering.”
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She says even though organisations across the world responded differently to the pandemic, there are some common threads.
“We saw civil society meeting essential needs, providing food, personal equipment, sanitary items, offering financial aid, truing to provide healthcare, psychological support everywhere.
“Another response that we found everywhere is turning to the online space to provide similar services that civil society used to provide but online, including policies and interventions against gender-based violence and so we saw a lot of organisations adapting their methods to respond to the needs of these populations online,” says Pousadela.
South Africa’s Ndlovu Youth Choir is listed among the organisations that made a difference.
“We got very nice examples of artists using their art performance, music, painting, all kinds of artists expressions to disseminate information. That was very important because in various contexts there are people who believe in myths about the virus and about how it works and about how we combat it,” Pousadela adds.
There are already many dangerous myths and misunderstandings about the Coronavirus/COVID-19. We would like to assist by sharing a short video where we explain some basic guidelines. @HealthZA @ndlovucaregroup @WHO #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/NRlng90hNS
— Ndlovu Youth Choir (@ChoirAfrica) March 10, 2020
Pousadela says the report also provides key lessons as the many countries face a second wave of Covid-19 infections, sending them back into lockdown.
Civicus further calls on states to work with civil society to mitigate the impact of pandemic and to rebuild post-pandemic.
Read full report here:
Civil society hailed for work done during Covid-19 by Nokukhanya Mntambo on Scribd
Listen to Pousadela below:
