Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

Communities’ knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 and infectious diseases are improved, capacities of health care providers to prepare for and respond to COVID-19 and other emergencies are strengthened and capacities of public health facilities are enhanced for improved infection control.

Contribution to SDG 3, 5 & GAP III objective: Promoting universal access to health, Ensuring freedom from all forms of gender-based violence (GBV).

Expected results

1.1) Communities are capacitated to become advocates for community health promotion and prevention;

1.2) Community members are capacitated to become catalysts of change in community health promotion, prevention and GBV prevention;

1.3) Diverse groups of community members improve their knowledge and awareness of community health promotion and prevention behaviours;

2.1) Health care providers and community health workers are capacitated to respond to emergency and non-emergency health situations;

2.2) Health care providers are capacitated to better respond to COVID-19 related mental health gaps;

2.3) Health care providers are capacitated to detect and refer gender-based violence cases;

3.1) PHC and hospitals are supported with medical equipment/supplies for infection prevention and control.

Target group / Beneficiaries

Direct beneficiaries: 3,734 participants/beneficiaries (65% female 35% male), including the following sub-groups: 1,184 health care providers, 72 community leaders, 160 elderly, 120 PwD, 1,500 students, 400 youth group members, 120 journalism students, 18 women association members and 160 men and boys in West Bank and Gaza.

Indirect beneficiaries: Additionally, the project will implement several activities that will reach more than 50,000 individuals: patients and medical teams (staff) who will benefit from the medical equipment procured and delivered to the targeted health facilities, the community members who will benefit from the community-based initiatives that will be implemented by the trained project participants. Finally, the project will reach more than 250,000 people through the national campaigns including social media, radio spots, etc.

Activities

Under Output 1: Establish Steering Committee; Conduct trainings for community leaders to become advocates for community health promotion and prevention behaviours; Conduct trainings for women association on health promotion and prevention for COVID-19 and other health problems, and on GBV detection and referral; Establish male groups and conduct training on raising awareness and engagement in GBV prevention; Conduct outreach and raising awareness activities for GBV prevention through community initiatives; Conduct awareness raising sessions for the elderly, people with disabilities, schools, journalism students, youth groups; Launch an initiative in targeted schools and youth gouts to disseminate messages; and Conduct national campaigns through online and media;

Under Output 2: Conduct trainings on Basic Emergency Preparedness, Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support, and Pediatrics Advanced Life Support for health care providers; Conduct trainings on IPC and Communication Skills for Internal Medicine and community health workers; Conduct trainings on identifying and addressing mental health gaps for healthcare providers and social worker; and Conduct trainings on gender-based violence detection and referral for healthcare providers;

Under Output 3: Conduct a rapid assessment to validate the urgently needed equipment/supplies; Procure identified equipment/supplies and distribute to the identified health facilities.

Context

Palestinian health facilities lack adequate medical equipment and health care staff lack the capacity to respond to COVID-19 and other similar emergencies. The latest OCHA oPt (occupied Palestinian territories) report reveals concerns around the lack of essential medications, medical supplies and laboratory consumables, particularly in Gaza, due to the long-standing restrictions in bringing in supplies. It is therefore crucial to help equip health care facilities with vital medical equipment and help support medical staff with relevant capacity-strengthening interventions, so they are better able to respond to COVID-19 and other emergencies. The importance to scale up emergency response by focusing on capacity building has also been articulated and identified as a priority by the oPt Health Cluster (HRP 2022), especially since health projects in the HRP are only 19% funded. While the vaccine supply in Palestine has improved, the main barrier to vaccination now appears to be a lack of information on the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. Further, there are still needs to promote vaccine uptake and address vaccine hesitancy among population. Especially, youth, women, residents of camps and villages, the less educated and those with poor internet access have encountered such information less than their counterparts. Considering also newly available booster vaccine, the proposing interventions will contribute to promote vaccine uptake by supporting various community groups in raising awareness and effective campaigns at national level.