Thread by @ARISEHub

And our #HSR2020 panel has begun. JK is explaining the hardships felt by waste-pickers during #COVID-19 in terms of health, the economy and other aspects of wellbeing

"We are crying about our fate
చావలేక బ్రతకలేక
[unable to die, unable to live]" #HSR2020

Aid (food, healthcare, access to welfare schemes) meant for vulnerable populations is often based on certificates of citizenship in #India. Even when people have the necessary documents migrant workers cannot use things like ration cards if they move elsewhere. #HSR2020

"Women are facing many problems. They don’t even have toilets. They have to go in deserted open areas. It is difficult to have a wash in private – boys and men are roaming around everywhere. There is no place to wash and dry the cloth we use during menstrual periods." #HSR2020

In India the type of food rations received for #COVID-19 relief were not enough and often not of the right type.

"The trouble is such that each rupee matters now for a person. Just lentils and rice alone won’t run the house, will they?" #HSR2020

Waste picker communities have run into challenges with the police during #COVID-19.

"They said we give rations and all that, then why do you need to get out? But rations are not much." HSR2020

Next up we have Sabina Rashid who is speaking from @BRACJPGSPH - she will focus on the experiences of informal settlements in #Bangladesh during the #COVID-19 pandemic #HSR2020

By 2040 over 50% of Bangladeshis will live in informal settlements. People are precarious - there is a gap between legal protections for settlement dwellers and what happens in practice. 70% of settlement dwellers in Dhaka are informally employed #HSR2020

Context matters in terms of #COVID-19.

In Bangladesh there was fear around death from #COVID-19 and stigma, people feared that if they were isolated they would never see their family again

Red flags placed in homes of infected people/households

#HSR2020

People can't comply with the bio-medical messaging from government. "My husband works at a garment factory that has been closed for the last 10-12 days. We have some pre-stored items (dry food). However, we don’t know what will happen when this will finish." #HSR2020

Data must be disaggregated (by gender, age, occupation, ethnicity and other axes of inequity) and generated through diverse sources and methods in order to yield a true, localised picture of the #COVID-19 pandemic. #HSR2020

Up next we have Joseph Macarthy of @SLURC_FT who will talk about the #COVID-19 response in Sierra Leone. Government measures didn't really take account how lockdown and curfew would affect people in informal settlements #HSR2020

For example, curfews give the impression that the poor have somewhere to live and rest during the evening and night. The focus on handwashing pre-supposes that people have access to water. To wear a mask you need the money to buy a mask.
#HSR2020

The government provided soap and buckets for water, some psychosocial support and food aid. But it was a top-down relationship between health authorities and informal dwellers, which excludes the latter from decision making #HSR2020

Communities in Freetown responded to the #COVID-19 pandemic by providing food relief for their peers in need, distributing water and designing, managing and disseminating information about COVID-19 and its appropriate mitigation #HSR2020

Next up we have Beate Ringwald speaking about participatory methods that have been used to engage communities in #Kenya on Intimate Partner Violence #IPV during #COVID-19 #HSR2020

This led to a definition of intimate partner violence that is relevant to the context, although broader than the standard definition and helped build teams and facilitated communication discussion, co-learning among community co-researchers and researchers #HSR2020 @RingwaldBeate

Next up we have Caroline Kabaria @kabariac of @aphrc talking about the data that explores vulnerability and marginalization in Nairobi’s informal settlements #HSR2020

Caroline is presenting data from 2018 and the urban demographic survey. The communities in Kenya's informal settlements have unsafe sanitation, semi permanent structures, poor drainage and poor garbage collection. #HSR2020

#COVID-19 exacerbated the effects of marginalisation on these communities. Curfews created loss of livelihood.
"Women are the hardest hit by COVID-19...the money they find in a day to day activity ends up in the hands of men in the family." #HSR2020

Access to health services were disrupted.

"there are many defaulters as mothers’ fear visiting the health facilities…. Some referral facilities are also overburdened during this outbreak hindering access to ….services." #HSR2020

There were problems with health information.

"People Living with Disabilities are easily isolated in access to information during COVID-19 outbreak especially hearing and visually impaired… this limits them accessing COVID-19 related resources"

#HSR2020 #DisabilityC19