Information Saves Lives: Health Response Fund

On behalf of Internews, we would like to thank you for your generous support of our COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund. With a global spike in coronavirus cases, support from donors like you is helping our local partners around the world to keep disseminating fact checked information to vulnerable communities that are susceptible to misinformation so that they can better protect themselves and their families as well as know what services are available and where and how to access those services.

Over the past 8 months, Internews' Information Saves Lives Rapid Response Fund has continued to  provide financial and technical support to over 180 media partners in around 70 countries in 110 languages, giving them the tools to report on COVID-19 to underserved populations. We are ensuring that journalist partners have the knowledge to report on health emergencies like the coronavirus pandemic as well as the capacity to publish fact-based information to targeted populations that are most at-risk.  

For example, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),Action for Vulnerable Women and Children (ASFEV) has received support from Internews’ Rapid Response Fund to report on COVID-19 awareness and prevention in the local Fizi language to the women in the Sud-Kivu province. Enacted as a program to protect the rights of rural women and victims of sexual assault, ASFEV now distributes radios, 2GB memory cards, and masks for community members to learn more about the way the virus spreads and its symptoms and the preventive measures that should be taken to protect themselves against COVID-19. By giving rural women accurate and relevant information on the current state of the pandemic, ASFEV is not only containing the spread of the pandemic, but it is also closing the information gap for women in these male dominated communities and increasing gender equality in DRC. To read more on ASFEV’s impressive work, please click here.  

 In Haiti, a local  online news media outlet, AyiboPost, has received support from Internews’ Rapid Response Fund to increase COVID-19 coverage to over 500,000 of its readers. The online news outlet is conducting extensive reporting informing the community with up to date news about the current status of the pandemic and its impact on day to day life. The outlet is also teaching its journalists to stay safe and better protect themselves while reporting in the midst of a pandemic. If you want to see what kind of content AyiboPost produces, take a look at their website here.  

As for our work in the Balkans, our partner the Bosnian news portal klix.ba is providing accurate quantitative data on the pandemic to the public and the government as there is a dearth of  credible information in the country. With the rise of COVID-19, it has been more important than ever to gather factual data and generate visual information that maps out the spread of the virus, capturing the number of cases and the number of deaths in various regions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. To look at some of the graphical representations produced by klix.ba that make it easier for the public to understand health information, please click here. 

Thank you donors for your support towards our mission to keep communities informed during this difficult time as we navigate the pandemic. Producing and disseminating accurate and verified information about the pandemic is key to keeping the most vulnerable parts of the world healthy and safe. If you have any questions or would like to know more about our COVID response work, please do not hesitate to reach out. 

We look forward to sharing more information about our projects and partners that have been made possible with your contributions.