Global Media Foundation (GMF), World Evangelical Alliance Business Coalition Ghana, Citizens Watch Ghana, Indigenous Women Empowerment Network, West Africa AIDS Foundation, Indigenous Youth Alliance Ghana and Global Coalition on Infectious Diseases have launched a $100,000 Covid-19 response fund with the aim of addressing the challenges that vulnerable communities in Bono East, Bono and Ahafo regions of Ghana are facing as a consequence of Covid-19.
The fund is the core of a project tagged ‘Covid-19 Vulnerable Communities Support (CVCS) Project’. The fund will support CSOs’ collaborative efforts around Covid-19 and stimulate creative interventions that promote resilience within and among vulnerable communities. The fund will provide small seed grants to community-based organisations, women and youth networks that are able to propose programmes aimed at enhancing awareness about precautionary measures, supporting vulnerable households, combatting discrimination and the stigmatisation of Covid-19 victims. The fund will also support serving the needs of the vulnerable individuals and communities.
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of GMF, Raphael Godlove Ahenu, said that the need for effective, on-the-ground prevention and rehabilitation efforts that target vulnerable communities in urban, informal and mining-affected settlements, which are characterised by a dense population and acute poverty, prompted efforts to launch the fund. He added that urban slums and mining-affected settlements are pigeonholed by a dense population and acute poverty, which makes social distancing and hygiene standards difficult to practice.
‘Without disposable cash to hoard food and basic necessities, these vulnerable communities cannot afford to stop working’, he said. The project is designed to run on four strategies, which are raising awareness, providing access to basic sanitary supplies, mitigating educational disruption and ensuring community resilience. Ahenu called for partners and donors to support the fund and the implementation of community-led initiatives. He called on well-meaning individuals and corporations to make donations so that vulnerable communities are well catered for in these trying times.
Source: Modern Ghana
Photo source: Prachatai
