Strengthen fragile health systems in Africa against COVID-19 and future public health threats with Focusing Philanthropy and partners CHIC, Muso, and VillageReach

As always, Focusing Philanthropy covers all overhead costs. 100% of every donation will go to the Health Access Campaign.

THE NEED

There is a small window before seasonal changes accelerate the spread of COVID-19 in Africa. Outbreaks feed on delay. To curb the pandemic impact, health systems must move fast to keep populations and health workers safe, find new cases, and diagnose and care for patients. Inaccurate information about who can catch COVID-19 and how to treat it will undermine efforts to slow the virus; governments need data and resources to disseminate ongoing updates with expediency. The coronavirus infection rate is up to twelve times higher for health workers than for the general population; they cannot effectively serve others without proper protection.

THE APPROACH

The Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC) is a consortium of many of the most innovative Community Health Worker (CHW) nonprofits. Their CHW model recruits, trains, pays and deploys local people (mostly women) as front-line workers in their own communities. Substantial evidence confirms that this approach can dramatically improve public health. Properly equipped, CHWs can also be a source of crucial information to Ministries of Health and the formal medical community on the presence and spread of disease, permitting targeted responses, especially important where resources are severely limited. 

We have crafted a priority initiative with CHIC and two of its members (VillageReach and Muso) to stay ahead of the foreseeable surge in COVID-19 cases in Africa:

Information: A free health hotline, supported by voice and text messaging, providing COVID-19 information to 11.9 million people

Training: Curricula and a phone-based platform to train CHWs on prevention, diagnosis, and contact tracing and monitoring of those infected

Equipment: Large-scale coordination with partners to rapidly deploy and restock personal protective equipment for health workers 

THE GOAL

Focusing Philanthropy will add $1 for every $1 contributed by VillageReach, Muso, and CHIC donors, for up to $1,050,000 in matching support toward the overall campaign goal of $2,100,000. Please support this COVID-19 health access bundle.

Donations must be a minimum of $1,000 and directed to Focusing Philanthropy, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit and free resource to donors. Donations are fully tax deductible and 100% of funds contributed will go to the COVID-19: Health Access initiative. All Focusing Philanthropy costs are covered by its founders.