COVID-19 Prevention and Emergency Response in Northern Rakhine State Even if government officials have scaled up the preventive effort, cancelling public gathering, and asking the population to stay at home when possible, Rakhine State has been largely left out of the government’s efforts to counter COVID-19. With mobile data still being disabled in two of the three townships of Northern Rakhine State, a vital communication channel to access information while avoiding gathering and unnecessary movements has been silenced. This leaves the population unable to follow in real-time the progress of the disease and the recommendations from national and international health agencies., the conflict between the Arakan Army and Myanmar Armed Forces has also made the townships of central and northern Rakhine State extremely unsafe, affecting the possibility for national preventive campaigns to deploy steadily. 

The project will rely on a network of community volunteers based at hamlet level, most of whom have already been working in collaboration with CSI for months and who have already received prior training on community mobilization, and on organizing awareness sessions on health-related topics. These volunteers belong to the target communities and will be mobilized based on their geographical location. The first phase of the project will be to train these volunteers on COVID-19 specific topics:
- What is COVID19?
- What are the symptoms of the disease?
- What are the preventive measures and barriers gestures?
- Who are the most vulnerable?
- Myths and Facts about coronavirus
- What to do if a villager is thought to be infected?
- How to prevent discrimination and stigma on infected persons?

In order to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region, and help decrease morbidity and mortality, CSI will organize a three-part response in 16 village tracts in Buthidaung and Rathedaung Townships. 

Firstly, basic information on preventive measures will be disseminated by the network of 24 community volunteers. The 3 channels to disseminate the information will be:
- Awareness sessions including verbal explanations and physical demonstrations of hand and mask washing, within groups of 5 people, in order to respect physical distancing
- Usage of loudspeakers
- Dissemination of IEC (posters and leaflets)
 
Secondly, CSI will increase the availability of soap and hand-washing facilities at hamlet levels. Masks will be made available for the participants to the sessions, and the use and availability of reusable masks will be supported. While reusable masks are not safe enough for medical personnel, their usage by the general population can still help in fighting the disease, providing clear and sufficient explanation is provided on the necessary additional preventive measures. CSI will support a group of 16 women in Buthidaung in producing reusable masks. CSI has already provided sewing training to women as part of its vocational training program organized in our Community Learning Centers in the area where basic sewing equipment is available to immediately start the production of these masks. 20,000 reusable masks will be produced during the time of the project, and distributed to vulnerable families (households with disabled people or women led households) who will be identified during soap distributions. 

The third element focuses on proper handling of suspected and confirmed cases, in order to stop the propagation of the virus within a community. Considering the restrictions on the freedom of movements of the local communities, in particular Rohingya villagers who are subjected to special restrictions, quarantine needs to be organized at hamlet level and handled with considerations to the local culture, which supposes for instance that they should be separated for different genders. Proper advocacy on the way to create these wards, as well as sufficient sheltering material to allow creating safe spaces at hamlet and ward level, will be provided to local village leaders.