Anti-COVID19 Campaign : A Pivotal Role Of Community Engagement

Sohail Khan
From the time, the PM announced the nation wide lock down over Covid19 that has created havoc around the globe ,consumed thousands of lives & infected millions, the people of J&k are also battling for their survival & are religiously following the health advisories & other directions of the government to stem the spread of this deadly virus. But few incidents of non-cooperation has came into display over the last few days that are worrisome & their cause needs to be understood in the right perspective & then dealt accordingly. The incidents like of Srinagar where suspected persons put into quarantine fled after breaking doors and window panes of hospitals , the people not maintaing the social distances at banks & also the incident of Tabeeqi jamat where the head of the Jamat is found using pulpit of the Mosque to exhort his followers to ignore health warnings & to defy directives of the state disallowing gathering of more than 50 People . All such incidents reflect that there is a “Deficient Threat Perception ” means the level of threat perception has not reached to them .Till date the governments machinery to communicate risk has served a thin upper class & middle class segment ,however, with Covid19 moving quickly towards rular & far flung areas ,one should not be surprised if such incidents of non cooperation start surfacing at a brick pace too. This signifies that govt measuring of coronovirus threat will alone not suffice & a willingness to cooperate can only be engaged from the deep within the community & this is where the ‘Community Engagement ‘ play it’s pivotal role .
“Community engagement is the prerequisite of risk communication. It is these people who would be able to effectively communicate the threat due to virus, instilling the right practices & combating the rumour & stigma”
Further Challenges & Need Of Community Engagement : With Covid 19 increasingly percolating to the ruler areas, contact tracing activities will have to pick up .So for our anti-coronavirus campaign to be a success, community participation has to ensure on a war footing .This can be done by engaging with the local Panchayats, civil societies ,disseminating publicity material into vernacular languages & also embracing the remotest community stalwarts who enjoy the community’s confidence & is perceived as an impartial non state agents . Another issue is of daily wage workers who get employment at daily basis & spend on daily basis. So threatened livelihoods due to lockdowns & also ‘deficient threat perception’ can instill indignation & non-cooperation. Here the role of ‘Bitul-maals’ & other charity foundations & NGOs comes into play. People should make those institutions stronger by donating more to them so they don’t fell short of money while reaching out to the needy .Further the current lock down is of 21 days, none of us is sure whether it would be restricted or continue. It is going to test the patience of people. So to ensure that they are able to coordinate with the govt, community personal is once again important. At the same time whatever the government schemes & initiatives are in this period, the upper class & rich are able to have a sink in with the government because their livelihood measures are already been met but we should be able to convince the lower strata of society & for that we need the knowledge of their mindset because they don’t have enough education. For all this what we need is the community engagement
Conclusion: Community engagement is the prerequisite of risk communication. It is these people who would be able to effectively communicate the threat of virus, instilling the right practices & also combating the rumour & stigma .Urgent reinforcing of community engagement activities will largely decide the trajectory covid 19 undertakes in India .Recruiting a medical work force, augmenting infrastructure, & manufacturing personal protective equipments on a war footing __unless these go hand in hand with community engagement,will result in undermining of both
(The author is associated with J&K RTI movement & a member of J&K youth Parliament, [email protected])