The COVID-19 outburst has laid limelight on the economic disparities and the delicate social safety that leaves marginalized communities to bear the brunt with or without a crisis. While the virus infects people from all walks of life, low-income families have been the most affected due to lack of access to basic needs.
KWAHO has been at the forefront to avail social assistance programs to provide marginalized communities with basic supplies and relevant information to cope with the crisis. The story below is one of the success stories gathered from the field when while implementing a COVID-19 response program sponsored by UNICEF through WASH Alliance.
Caption: Danson’s wife helps him wash his hands before he preps his oxygen concentrator machines
Seated on a couch leaning right of his small house made of rusted iron, Danson gasps for breath through oxygen pipes paired to an oxygen concentrator machine right next to him.
“I have been tied to this machine for the last five years which has rendered me immobile as the cylinders are quite bulky. I forgot what ‘normal’ felt like, with or without pandemics, this is my normal.’
Danson is middle-aged suffering from C.O.B.D. a disease that has impaired his respiratory system and has forced him to rely on oxygen machines. His condition has denied him the mobility to go out and fend for his family as the sole breadwinner as he did before the ailment.
Living In an informal settlement characterized with inadequate health facilities, lack of proper housing and sanitation, insufficient water and electricity, and a depleted economic infrastructure has made their living conditions even harder especially during this COVID-19 season with measures which according to him, do not seem to address the main needs for survival of people living in slums.
He says he has been relying on well-wishers to pay both his medical and domestic needs, but now with the COVID-19 stringent measures imposed by the government, life has become harder as they have found themselves facing the current economic crisis and therefore lack enough to share with him and his household.
“We are really lucky that we were among those who received the UNICEF’s household handwashing facilities and bar soaps donation through KWAHO. They have helped us to at least keep as from the virus as now we can wash hands as often as we can. My visitors and well-wishers can also wash their hands from a decent point when they come to visit! Providing such basic facilities in slums not only improves the hygiene conditions for slum dwellers but also strengthens public health and stimulates the local economy.” He says.
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