Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
10 June 2020
Post No. 147
The Week’s Contents
• Week Beginning 08 June 2020: Innovations in Times of Covid-19-led Economic and Health Threats with a Focus on Projects of Innovation for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development
• Returnees’ Project or the “R” Project
• Coronavirus Spring Project (CSP): Only Two Weeks Remaining!
… and much more!
Key Messages
~ Week beginning 08 June 2020: Innovations in Times of Covid-19-led Economic and Health Threats with a Focus on Projects of Innovation for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development
Last week, we kicked off our Creative Economic Development Month with Creativity in Times of Covid-19-led Economic and Health Threats and a focus on Creative Economic Development Projects. We worked out how creation could lead to happiness.
This week, we are continuing with Jmesci project by putting an emphasis on Innovations in Times of Covid-19-led Economic and Health Threats with a focus on Projects of Innovation for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development. Amongst the innovations we are dealing with, there are:
(a) Innovations to reduce Covid-19-induced poverty and hardship
(b) Innovations to integrate or factorise Covid-19 in the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030
(c) Innovative work carried out by our Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) to manage the Covid-19 threats and disturbances.
These innovations could help to get the peace that the beneficiaries of these innovations may need amid the Covid-19 battle.
For more details about this first key message, please read under the Main Development section of this post.
~ Returnees’ Project or “R” Project
Do you need any help to move from lockdown to a reopened economy?
CENFACS can help you to manage the transitional process from lockdown to a reopened economy during this Covid-19 period.
How CENFACS can help
We can help with the following:
√ Basic transition advice
√ Information
√ Support
√ Essential protection advice against Covid-19
√ Guidance
√ Signposting
√ Advocacy
What’s more, we have a Back-from-lockdown Advisory Pack!
To access the “R” project, please contact CENFACS as follows:
=> Email: facs@cenfacs.org.uk
=> Textphone: 07534781248
=> Complete the comments form on this website with your needs and submit to CENFACS.
To enable us to get back to you, please make sure that you give us your contact details (e.g. email or phone number or physical address).
More about “R” Project
“R” Project is a temporary initiative designed by CENFACS to help people come out poverty linked to economic inactivity caused by the Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown conditions. The project can help them to start a smooth transition in returning from the situation of lockdown to that of a re-opened economy.
Through this project, they can rebuild confidence and reassurance, reconquer self-motivation and self-esteem, improve their opportunity to start from scratch, and find ways of re-socialising in a new socially and physically distancing environment during the lockdown exit and thereafter.
Who is eligible for the “R” project?
Those in most need and most vulnerable including the following:
√ People living in poverty and hardships
√ Those going back to education and training
√ Those going back to work
√ Those resuming any essential outside activity that is deemed to be useful for their health and economic wellbeing
For any queries or enquiries, please contact CENFACS.
~ Coronavirus Spring Project (CSP): Only Two Weeks Remaining!
The fundraising campaign about the Coronavirus Spring Project will end this month with the end of Spring season. For those who have not yet supported this project, there are only two weeks to go until we close this fundraising campaign.
We fully understand that Covid-19 and the lockdowns it has led have been a challenging experience for everybody. Many people have lost their jobs, economies have been shut down and many incomes have disappeared, let alone the huge fatalities that Covid-19 has created.
However, for those who can help we are appealing to their generosity to do something. The Covid-19 and the lockdowns it has led have asymmetrical consequences. Those who are/were in poverty and hardships may be feeling the damaging effects of Covid-19 more than anybody else. Particularly, in places where there is no financial bailout or if it exists it does not always reach or help the poorest of these societies, there is a need to appeal to the goodwill of international donors like you to try to assist where and when you can.
It is true we put a deadline for any of our fundraising campaigns. However, this does not mean after the CSP deadline the devastating effects of Covid-19 on poor people will disappear. The legacies of Covid-19 on the poorest are still to come. This is why it makes sense to support now to mitigate or cut down these negative impacts on poor people.
You can help those people who are in most need and vulnerable to avoid a total economic and human collapse in them.
To support, just go to: http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
Extra Messages
~ Triple-value Voting Initiative as a Covid-19 Recreational Activity
How to break out the vicious circle of Covid-19 lockdowns
This week’s activity in order to help people manage lockdowns wherever they are is to try to Vote their International Development and Poverty Relief Covid-19 Manager (IDPRCM).
As part of this exercise, one can try to find out an ideal or virtual Covid-19 Manager (International Development and Poverty Relief Covid-19 Manager) who is helping or who helped people and communities to both meet sustainable development goals and reduce poverty within the context and constraint of Covid-19.
How to find out your IDPRCM
To research your International Development and Poverty Relief Covid-19 Manager (IDPRCM), you need to take some steps before casting your virtual vote. They include the following:
√ Write down your Covid-19 Manager job description
√ Write down your Covid-19 Manager person specification
√ Watch or observe as many candidates as you can (watch work they are doing)
√ Check their CV, credentials and references
√ Search your ideal/virtual three Covid-19 Managers within potential candidates you have been watching and match the best three candidates (after shortlisting) with job description, person specification, their achievements in terms of poverty reduction and sustainable development goals
√ Select one amongst the three who comes on top
√ Vote your IDPRCM
Who is your IDPRCM?
He/she is a person who would have met the defined person specification and job description in terms of helping those in most need and most vulnerable to achieve defined areas of sustainable development goals and reduce poverty within the context and constraint of Covid-19.
He/she is a person that can help poor people to meet their utility or welfare under the difficult context and constraint of Covid-19.
Please remember, whatever your ideal/virtual Covid-19 Manager is doing or will do, he/she needs to help people meet sustainable development and poverty reduction goals during the Covid-19 lockdowns or period.
Good luck in search of your IDPRCM!
For any enquiries or queries about this activity, please do not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
~ Protection of Poor People’s Creations and Innovations
This second week of June is as well about rethinking ways of protecting poor people’s creative and innovative works. This is knowingly that poor people do not always have or have enough money to pay for protection of their makings.
It is not enough for them to create and or innovate; they also need to protect their makings in the form of copyrights and other protection that other creators and innovators do enjoy. One can think of the use of the internet and online technologies how they made it easier for some people sometimes to violate or infringe on poor people’s creative and innovative works and rights.
So, as part of the Creative Economic Development Month, we would like to work together and find out the best possible and affordable ways of protecting poor people’s creative and innovative works.
To support and or enquire about CENFACS’ initiative on the Protection of Poor People’s Creations and Innovations, contact CENFACS.
~ Covid-19 and Women in Africa’s Essential Care Economy
How to protect women making Africa’s essential care economy
Findings from textual data indicate that women make up 70 per cent of the healthcare in Africa as they work as nurses, laundry workers, midwifes, catering assistants, hygienists, etc. Studying the distribution of nurses, the United Nations Women (1) states 65% of nurses in the African region are women compared to men only 35%.
They are the essential workforce of Africa’s essential care economy. There is a need for Africa to protect the backbone of its care economy mostly at this exceptional time of Covid-19 disturbance.
However, before thinking about the protection of African women carers, let’s try to define care economy. To do that, we have chosen the definition of care economy given by the European Institute for Gender Equality (2), which argues that a care economy is
“part of human activity, both material and social, that is concerned with the process of caring for the present and future labour force, and the human population as a whole, including the domestic provisioning of food, clothing and shelter”.
From this definition, the care economy is more than just the healthcare workers we have mentioned above. It includes the following as well: unpaid family caregivers, domestic workers, those who care for disable and elderly people, community-based health workers, etc. They are all essential workers and make Africa’s essential care economy. This is the economy that Africa is currently in bad need of in order to battle Covid-19.
Given the essentiality of the care economy and of work African women are doing to fight Covid-19, there is a necessity to protect Africa’s women healthcare workers (WHCW). This protection can be on a wide range of aspects which include the following.
Income protection: It is about better reward or pay to WHCW so that they can better focus on their work without worrying about how to tie the two ends of the month in their personal or family budget.
Health protection: WHCW have close and prolonged contact with sick (here Covid-19) patients, it is normal that they get the higher level of protection in terms of Covid-19 personal and protective equipment.
Family protection: The protection of WHCW should not only be at work. It should be as well where they live as they often live with family members and do another care work at home. They and their family members need face coverings, water supplies, soaps for hands washing, cleaning products to disinfect homes from Covid-19 strains, etc.
Skills protection: Many of WHCW are skilful enough to deal with viruses since they have experiences or lessons from Ebola, Zika, SARS and HIV viruses. They have counselling, communication and advisory skills that can help in the fight against Covid-19.
Protection against violence and insecurity: Covid-19 has brought devastating health, socio-economic and security issues. Some of these issues are linked to violence and insecurity against women and girls in Africa. Women and girls need more and better security as Africa battles Covid-19.
Protection against misinformation: Not having access to internet and connectivity, as well as to good information about Covid-19 can mislead WHCW. To protect them, there is a need to improve access to Covid-19 information.
We do not need to list all the areas of protection for anybody to understand how to protect women making Africa’s essential care economy. We can instead continue to argue that Africa cannot bypass WHCW in its fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. Africa needs to protect and safeguard its essential care economic asset in order to win the Covid-19 battle.
There should be re-evaluation of women care workers in African societies through better working conditions, pay, voice, medical support and leadership. More than that, women who are essential healthcare workers can help other women mitigate the impacts of the Covid-19 crisis and avoid a differentiated treatment against Covid-19 between genders.
As far as CENFACS is concerned, we are encouraging and supporting our ASOs to help their women care workers and beneficiaries who are social care workers so that they can have better protection in all those dimensions we have mentioned. We also demand them to promote some of the jobs of the care industry (like domestic workers, laundry workers, unpaid family caregivers, cleaners, etc.) which are not highly regarded in some places; whereas they are very essential in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The Covid-19 thoughts continue…
(1) https://data.unwomen.org/features/covid-19-and-gender-what-do-we-know
(2) https://eige.europa.eu./thesaurus/terms/
Main Development
• Week beginning 08 June 2020: Innovations in Times of Covid-19-led Economic and Health Threats with a Focus on Projects of Innovation for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development
One thing is to create in times of Covid-19-led Economic and Health Threats; another thing is to implement those creations. In this second week of our creative and innovation activities, we are going to focus on three types of innovations as follows:
(a) Innovations to reduce Covid-19-induced poverty and hardships
(b) Innovations to integrate or factorise Covid-19 in the realisation of Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030
(c) Innovative work carried out by our Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) to manage the Covid-19 threats and disturbances.
• • Types of innovations making the focus for this week’s Jmesci
(a) Innovations to reduce Covid-19-induced poverty and hardships
These first types of innovations are the introduction of new ideas and methods to help alleviate poverty and hardships that may have been caused by or as a result of Covid-19.
In normal times when there are no threats, it is straightforward to routinely handle new ideas and methods. However, in threatening moments, innovations can become a matter of life and survival, especially if these innovations touch the lives of those who feel more the pain of threats than anybody else. Many of these innovations related to Covid-19 outbreak would be for example about saving lives or protecting the economy or safeguarding health infrastructure.
As far as CENFACS is concerned, we have gone beyond our normal advice service to innovate by putting in place an innovation project called: Advisory Support for Coronavirus Rescue Income (ASCRI) project.
ASCRI, which is part of CENFACS’ Cube or Protection, is a non-face-to-face advice, support and information project to help those who lost their earning capacity or potential because of the destructive impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on their incomes and lives.
The ASCRI project has a double objective:
1/ Helping deprived and vulnerable people impacted by Covid-19
2/ Supporting them through the alleviation of the associated social and economic hardship caused by the coronavirus crisis
To access and or gain the benefits of this project, one needs to contact CENFACS.
Innovating for poverty relief in times of life-threatening and –destroying impacts of Covid-19 could be a matter of saving lives as argued above. It could as well be about developing new services and activities or upgrading existing services and activities that can help poor and vulnerable people to reduce or end the threats and destructions posed by the same factor, here Covid-19. This is what CENFACS did by innovating through its advice service.
So, in difficult times of Covid-19 lockdowns and economies are shut down, innovations for those organisations (like CENFACS) involved in the work of poverty relief are crucial for them and their users to save their lives, survive, sustain and possibly thrive after the crisis.
(b) Innovations to integrate or factorise Covid-19 in the realisation of sustainable development goals and Agenda 2030
Developing in a way of meeting the needs of both current and future generations does not happen itself. For it to happen, humans need to work and innovate. Innovations to integrate or factorise Covid-19 are about supporting sustainable initiatives from people and communities in need in adding value to their efforts so that they can come out poverty and hardships. It is as well investing in initiatives that facilitate the development of sustainable initiatives and activities.
However, in trouble times like of Covid-19 there could be mixed effects or reactions. The lockdowns have partially contributed to the environmental sustainability with a decrease in CO2 emissions, less pollution from cars and factories, less noise, improvement in clean air, etc.
On the contrary, there could be attitudes or mindsets that could feel the price to pay for sustainability could be higher at this time of Covid-19 than at any other time, since people are already paying the price through the lockdowns. They may tend to psychologically abandon the virtues and practice of sustainable development or just be reluctant in doing sustainable development (for example in accepting energy transition or saving energy since the lockdown forces them to consume much household energy/electricity).
Additionally, people have been forced to live in a physical and social distancing way while following the rules about hygiene and disinfection to control the virus. All these types of demand can put psychological pressure on people and make them to feel a bit confused about measures to protect and save lives compared to the requirements of sustainable living. Yet, there is no confusion between sustainable living on one hand and life-saving and protection on the other.
One way to avoid this confusion is to integrate the consumption of Covid-19 products (e.g. plastic gloves, face coverings, other disposable items etc.) into sustainable consumption and use to see how people are meeting the realisation of sustainable development goals. This is why during our May 2020 Stories Month, we brought into discussion the stories about the environmental impacts of Covid-19 in terms recycling or circular economy.
With innovations adapted to deal with Covid-19 threats, innovations to integrate or factorise Covid-19 could be a response to threats, uncertainty and difficulty rather than be problematic. These innovations of new products only become an issue for the realisation of sustainable development goals when for example there are used plastic gloves and face masks that are disposed on the streets, in the seas and oceans without a proper recycling plan. This means there should another type of innovation to recycle the Covid-19 waste.
Regarding CENFACS, the circular economic tips and hints which we provide as part of one of our projects known as “Consume to Reduce Poverty” can help people to find innovative ways to consume in era of Covid-19 without putting extra burden on the environment while developing harmonious relationships with the nature.
For those who want to integrate or factorise Covid-19 into their consumption model but are having some problems to do that, they can e-work with CENFACS.
(c) Innovations carried out by our Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) to manage the Covid-19 threats
The month of Creative Economic Development is also of highlighting innovations conducted by CENFACS’ ASOs. There is a variety of African innovations in Covid-19 response. They are home-grown innovative solutions, a wealth of innovations in talents in Africa, without ignoring the research and development carried out in the fight against Covid-19.
The innovations that we are talking about are not only about introducing a new medicine or vaccine to cure Covid-19 although it is very important. But, these are efforts undertaken by our ASOs to innovate poverty reduction solutions within the context and constraint of Covid-19. Among these innovations, we can highlight the health awareness campaign regarding the channels of transmission of the coronavirus pandemic; campaign designed to dispel or demystify the local or tribe beliefs on the mystique causes of Covid-19 in the Democratic Republic of Congo like it happened with the Ebola virus.
The above is just one of the many examples of innovative ways of working to develop sustainable initiatives by our ASOs. They are trying to find and introduce new ideas and methods to tackle old, current and new problems that themselves and their users face.
Whether we speak about innovations related to the reduction of Covid-19-induced poverty and hardships or innovations to integrate/factorise Covid-19 in the realisation of sustainable development goals and Agenda 2030 or innovations carried out by our Africa-based Sister Organisations to manage the Covid-19 threats; all these innovations can be translated into specific projects development and appraisal. It means they can be planned, implemented, monitored and evaluated. We can summarise them as innovation projects for poverty reduction and sustainable development. What do we mean by innovation projects for poverty reduction and sustainable development in the Age of Covid-19?
• • Projects of Innovation for Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Development
They are that are going to innovate current systems or practices with new things or bringing something to replace existing ones within a given scope. They are designed to tackle poverty and meet the needs of current and future generations. In this respect, innovation projects are instrumental in reducing poverty induced by Covid-19 and in reducing the adverse effects of Covid-19 on the realisation of sustainable development goals.
An example of these projects of innovation for poverty reduction and sustainable development is our Advisory Support for Coronavirus Rescue Income (ASCRI) project; example which we have already mentioned.
To support and or enquire about the week of innovations to tackle life-threatening and -destroying impacts of Covid-19, please contact CENFACS.
To become a CENFACS’ Creation and or Innovation Supporter, please contact CENFACS as well.
Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going in 2020.
We do our work on a very small budget and on a voluntary basis. Making a donation will show us you value our work and support CENFACS’ work, which is currently offered as a free service.
One could consider a recurring donation to CENFACS in the furture.
Donate to support CENFACS!
FOR ONLY £1, YOU CAN SUPPORT CENFACS AND CENFACS’ PROJECTS, JUST GO TO http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support throughout 2020 and beyond.
With many thanks.
