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Our COVID-19 response

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the core tenets of The Hunger Project’s work are as relevant as ever. Our long-term work promoting local leadership, strong systems, and resilience are all critical as communities navigate the health, economic and social impacts of COVID-19.
The Hunger Project has mobilised 500,000 trained, local leaders in 13 countries around the world to create COVID-Resilient Communities in each of the 13,600 villages where we work. Our program leadership created a Framework for Action designed to be tailored to each local context, empowering community leaders with the tools and information they need to keep themselves, their families, and their communities safe.

Our Framework for Action

At the community level – a 5-point plan:

  1. Spreading awareness and understanding – of how to stay safe by promoting hand washing, physical distancing, and wearing face coverings in public, and debunking misinformation
  2. Ensuring access to hand washing stations – for every household and in key public places
  3. Identifying symptomatic residents – linking them to health officials where possible and assisting them to isolate
  4. Ensuring relief for those who are destitute – either from public safety nets or community philanthropy, and encouraging innovation to preserve livelihoods
  5. Promoting community peace, trust and cohesion – introducing strategies to halt stigma, social unrest, scapegoating, gender-based violence, and child marriage

Response Highlights

The community-led response to COVID-19 looks different in each country. Some of the actions we have taken in partnership with our network of leaders include:
  • Installing 2,200 “Tippy Taps” (touchless handwashing stations) in Benin
  • Raising $300,000 through community philanthropy to support the most impacted people in 1,900 villages in Bangladesh
  • Equipping 8,000 elected women in India with information to share with their constituents  and distributing food and sanitation packs to 11,654 of the most vulnerable households in Bihar
  • Using radio to reach up to 718,000 people across Africa with messages about preventing the spread of COVID-19

Make an Impact

If you would like to reach 16.5 million people in Africa, India and Bangladesh and enable them to stop the spread of COVID-19 in their communities, you can invest here.