Increasing community awareness on COVID-19 prevention in Timor-Leste

Sharing hygiene information with communities is crucial to preventing the spread of COVID-19, but this can be a particular challenge in hard-to-reach communities in Timor-Leste, such as those in Bobonaro, one of Timor-Leste’s most geographically remote municipalities.

Maria, her daughter Maria and her family at their home in Bobonaro. Photo Credit: World Vision Timor-Leste.

To help prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Bobonaro’s hard-to-reach communities, World Vision, with support from the Australian Government through the Disaster READY program, conducted Training of Trainers with community health volunteers and local leaders in 50 villages in Bobonaro. The training aimed to raise awareness of COVID-19 prevention so that participants could share these messages with their communities.

Maria, who participated in the training sessions, lives with ten other family members on their farm. In response to the State of Emergency decreed by the Government, Maria and her family have stayed at home. However, Maria wanted to know how to prevent COVID-19 from spreading in her household and community, motivating her to participate in the training provided by World Vision.

“This training helps me to protect myself from the disease as I know to frequently wash my hands with soap, use a mask when going outside and maintain a physical distance of at least one metre,” she explained.

As a Mother’s Support Group member, Maria received a COVID-19 prevention poster from World Vision to help her share prevention messages with her family and members of her community.

Maria (centre) and her daughter with other participants of the COVID-19 prevention training conducted by World Vision. Photo Credit: World Vision Timor-Leste.

Maria’s 15-year-old daughter, also called Maria, accompanied her mother to the training.

“During COVID-19, I have to stay at home to prevent myself from the outbreak. The most important messages I picked up from the training was washing hands with soap, covering our mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, use masks and maintaining physical distance when going out,” she said.

Maria hopes the virus disappears quickly so she can return to school.

World Vision’s Zito Afranio explained how the training was conducted.

“In the training session, we kept maintaining one metre distance. As each village has around 40 participants, we divided into two to four sessions, depending on the size and location of the villages. World Vision and the village chiefs will continue to monitor households regularly to ensure they are understanding prevention measures and establishing hand washing facilities in their house.”