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COVID-19: ADDRESSING VACCINE HESITANCY AND RESISTANCE IN JAMAICA, WI.

October 16th, 2021

COVID-19: ADDRESSING VACCINE HESITANCY AND RESISTANCE TO TAKING THE VACCINATION IN JAMAICA, WI.

Give Them a Hand Foundation is painfully aware that the Covid-19 pandemic has affected lives all around the world and has taken a toll on almost every aspect of society. Jamaica is no exception, and in fact has one of the highest levels of vaccine hesitancy and resistance in the world. We are committed to doing something to correct that.

Our plan is to host a Vaccine Health and Wellness event on November 19, 2021. It will be streamed on YouTube and Facebook and the GTAH website. We are also discussing the possibility of partnering with one or more TV outlets.

Presently, with our Jamaican partners, we are developing a program which we believe has an excellent chance of attracting the masses that will give us the opportunity to inform and educate. Our partners on the ground are the Medical Association of Jamaica, the Lions Clubs of New Kingston and Mandeville, and several University of the West Indies chapters in North America as well as a number of noted infectious disease specialists in the Caribbean

We are very aware that the Jamaican Government wants at least 70% of the population to be vaccinated. However, we do not expect people to turn out to hear scientists and health professionals speak about the pandemic and the vaccines. The intelligentsia may turn out to listen and view, but not hundreds of thousands of the general public which are the numbers we are expecting to attract.

We will have some popular artistes to entertain people and speakers with whom they are familiar. Speakers will deliver short, targeted messages. No statement will be longer than 4 minutes. PSA’s will be 60 seconds. We will record Man-in-the-Street interviews in Half-Way-Tree, Mandeville and May Pen and play the myths and misinformation that they repeat, rebutting each as they appear. The entire program will be pre-recorded.

Speakers who have confirmed are Dr. Morais Guy, MP and Shadow Minister of Health; Professor Peter Figueroa, University of the West Indies; Professor Swinburne Augustine (Dominica); Professor Winston Davidson, as well as Speakers from Sierra Leone and the World Health Organization (WHO); Harold Lovell, Former MP, Antigua, and Barbuda, and Dr. Joy St. John (CARPHA). Mr Leachim Semaj, Faith leader, Rev Newton Dixon and Dr Abrahams are all on board as well. We have invited Dr. Christopher Tufton, Minister of Health, and hope to have him on board shortly.

The following artists have agreed to perform in the event: Nadine Sutherland, Christopher Martin, Ding Dong, Fab5, Menace Da General (Sierra Leone), and Daphne (Cameroonian superstar). Frankie Campbell is the musical director for the event. The Mighty Sparrow and Patrick Ewing have agreed to record PSA’s in support of vaccination. Fab5 will be the musical director; Phase 3 Productions will do the video recording and Big Yard Studios will be the venue for the artistes to perform.

We are still in need of funding, and we are asking concerned global citizens who are reading this to assist by donating to cover the costs of production, which will amount to US$25,000. Working together we can save lives and improve health outcomes for COVID-19 in Jamaica and the Caribbean.

PROJECT TO STOP THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 IN SOUTH KIVU, DRC

August 27th, 2020

GIVE THEM A HAND FOUNDATION, UNITED AFRICAN CONGRESS, INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY, HOPE AND HEALTH VISION:

PROJECT TO STOP THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 IN SOUTH KIVU, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

The four organizations named above collaborated in the development of a pilot project to help stop the spread of Covid-19 in the community of Nyabibwe in the Territory of Kalehe, located in South Kivu, DRC. Supplementary objectives were to stimulate economic activity in the communities and to provide psycho-social and educational support for the people. The pilot project commenced on 20 June for one week.

GTAH, UAC and IAAP are all based in New York State but worked with Hope and Health Vision which is an NGO based in the DRC and also accredited in the United States. Hope and Health Vision, headed by Jean-Marie Bazibuhe, had psychologists and social workers on the ground as part of the team who would follow the steps the coalition outlined to implement the program. In New York the team comprised Gordon Tapper, Founder of GTAH and President of UAC, Dr Judy Kuriansky, Professor of Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University and representative of IAAP at the United Nations, and Stephanie Evans, Director of Education at Harlem Hospital in Harlem, New York, and Executive Director of GTAH. The project was financed from the personal funds of Gordon Tapper and Judy Kuriansky, with a contribution from United African Congress.

The project called for hiring women to sew 4,000 masks on their machines to the designs and standards established by WHO. The masks were to be distributed to approximately 2000 adults, male and female, preselected by the staff on the ground. The occasion of distributing the masks also served for educating recipients on the sanitation measures they needed to adopt in order to protect themselves from the infection. In addition to being trained in good sanitation practices they were also given psychosocial training intended to help them build their resilience in the face of an infection that was causing much fear and panic in the communities. The sanitation and the psychosocial information was provided by carefully crafted infographics and by the well-trained, qualified staff.

As this was a pilot project, persons who had come to receive masks and who also received training, were asked to fill out a questionnaire that sought to understand their fears and beliefs and responses to certain situations. The individuals were to return to the distribution/training center at the end of the week to provide feedback and to respond to a post-event questionnaire.

The third pillar of the project involved the installation of five handwashing stations located at key gathering points. They were provided with soap in the handwashing process and taught the proper way to wash their hands after touching objects in public or inadvertently shaking hands.

The date for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the pilot project has not yet been determined but will possibly be towards the end of September. At that time, the results will be released to community leaders, the NGO community and to the international agencies working in the DRC. Should the results prove to have had a positive effect on the people, by altering their behavior and reinforcing their ability to protect themselves from Covid19 and other contagious diseases, we will be seeking funding so as to enable us to support a much larger segment of the population of DRC.

It should be noted that while we cannot at this time provide the results of the pilot project we can say that there were several persons, adults and children, who turned out over a five day period and were very excited to be a part of the project.

SITE PHOTOS

Crowds of people eagerly awaiting hand-washing demonstrations:

Installing water barrel for hand-washing station:

Hand-washing demonstration:

Explanation of infographic on good sanitary practices:

Assistance and explanation on proper wearing of masks:

GTAH, UAC, IAAP and Black Star News host Webinars on ‘The Coronavirus in Africa’

August 9th, 2020

Give Them a Hand Foundation and Partners Remain Committed to Improving the Medical Infrastructure of African Countries

The Give Them a Hand Foundation (GTAH) and its partners, United African Congress (UAC), International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP) and Black Star News, have always had as their main focus the development of Africa and its 54 countries, and facilitating the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. This includes an emphasis on socio-economic development, gender equality, education for youth, and healthcare services for all, with special attention to remote rural, underserved communities.

In 2014, we were among the organizations first to sound the alarm about the impending Ebola outbreak in West Africa and its potential to become a worldwide pandemic. As a result, we hosted the first forum held at the United Nations on the subject, bringing together the Ambassadors of the three most-affected countries – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – with representatives from civil society, WHO, the UN, and the medical profession. An impressive outcome was that expatriate organizations mobilized to send over a million-dollars-worth of medical equipment and supplies to those affected countries. We followed that forum with a major awareness-raising event in the UN General Assembly Hall featuring speeches by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power and the Ambassador of the AU Observer Mission.

In 2019, GTAH, UAC and IAAP joined the fight against the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that was claiming thousands of lives. We partnered with Friends of the Congo here in the USA and held a forum in New York City with panelists from CDC, WHO, Harvard University, and other organizations. We also reached an agreement with the University of Butembo in North Kivu to provide training for students in psychology, communications and pastoral studies, community leaders, and faculty members on risk communication, psychosocial support, and community engagement, including a community service element. The project will be revived when the COVID-19 pandemic ends.

However, our partnership to help the people of the DRC continued, to date, with our partners on the ground in South Kivu. The current project combats COVID-19 in the region through the elements of entrepreneurship (hiring local women to sew masks distributed free to the community), and health and psychosocial skills education, about mask-wearing, hand-washing and psychosocial activities. We provide handwashing stations in key locations and infographics to inform the community on good sanitation and building psychological resilience. Success of the project is anecdotally reported, and data is being evaluated.

As with Ebola, we were the first to raise the alarm about the COVID-19 threat to Africa at the UN. In response, we have been hosting webinars on the overarching theme “The Coronavirus in Africa.” All have included experts from various disciplines, as well as drawn large numbers of registrants and garnered positive feedback from an audience of a wide cross-section of the diplomatic community, government ministers, NGOs, health professionals, advocates, media, and others.

The first webinar, on 9 April, addressed the topic “Coronavirus in Africa: Stopping the Spread and the Panic”. Speakers included the Ambassador of Sierra Leone to the United States, the Ambassador of Ethiopia to the United Nations and the Chargé d’Affaires of the African Union Mission in Washington, DC.

The second webinar on 30 April was entitled, “Coronavirus in Africa: Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Violations of Human Rights in the Era of the Covid-19 Pandemic”. Speakers included the former AU Ambassador in Washington, DC, Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao, UNHCR Deputy Director Richard Towle, Ms. Yaqui Wang from Human Rights Watch, and human rights activist and professor at Emory University, Isabella Alexander-Nathani.

For our third webinar, on “The Impact of the Lockdown from Reporters on the Ground”, leading journalists from South Africa, Lesotho, Nigeria, and Ghana reported on the current state of the crisis in their respective countries.

The fourth webinar, held on 4 June, focused on “The Impact of the Lockdown on Food Security” and featured as the main speaker H.E. Dr. Owuso Afriyie Akoto, the Minister of Food and Agriculture for Ghana.

Our fifth webinar focused on “The Economic Impact of Covid-19 on Africa: Building a Sustainable Future”. Speakers included Mr. Mamo Mehritu, Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Mr. Abiy Ahmed, and Professor Jeffrey Sachs of the Sustainable Development Institute at Columbia University.

The 6th webinar addressed “Innovations and Technology in Health Care in Africa” and the 7th webinar focused on “Gender Disparities: Its Impact on Women and Girls”.

The format usually involves three speakers, presenting for 10-12-minutes, followed by a 20-minute Q&A session with our resident panel of experts, and another 20-minute Q and A with attendees.

Our resident panel of experts comprises Dr. Judy Kuriansky, the main representative of the IAAP at the United Nations and Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University Teachers College; Dr. Mohammed Nurhussein, Professor Emeritus of Medicine from SUNY Downstate Medical Center; Mr. Milton Allimadi, Professor of African History at John Jay College; and Ms. Stephanie Evans, Director of Medical Imaging at Harlem Hospital.

Stephanie Evans, Executive Director, Give Them a Hand Foundation

Gordon Tapper, Founder, Give Them a Hand Foundation

Following see the invitation flyers for the webinars

WEBINAR #1 – 9 April 2020: “Stopping the Spread and the Panic”

WEBINAR #2 – 30 April 2020: “Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Violations of Human Rights in the Era of the Covid-19 Pandemic”

WEBINAR #3 – 14 May 2020: “Impact of the Lockdown from Reporters on the Ground”

WEBINAR #4 – 4 June 2020: “Impact of the Lockdown on Food Security”

WEBINAR #5 – 18 June 2020: “Economic Impact of Covid-19: Building a Sustainable Future”

WEBINAR #6 – 9 July 2020: “Technology and Innovation in Healthcare in Africa”

WEBINAR #7 – 23 July 2020: “Gender Disparities: Its Impact on Women and Girls”