Marthar Shimwe
The national youth response to Covid-19 campaign was launched in the Zambezi region recently.
It was started the Zambezi Regional Youth Forum in order to capacitate the youth in that region to play a role on informing residents about coronavirus that leads to Covid-19.
Klaivert Mwandingi, AfriYAN president said a committee was formed to visit the regions together with the National Youth Council (NYC) and the Ministry of Sport, Youth and National Service to reach out to more than 12 000 Namibian households.
The youth will be part of this health awareness initiative and not only are the youth the pivot of this initiative in terms of information dissemination in the communities, but because the youth are among the most affected segment of the population, said Mwandingi.
He further stated that with this initiative, many youth have been deployed in various regions to go out and this will form part of youth economic empowerment, as all the youth deployed are contracted and will receive monetary incentives under this initiative, which is under the ministry of youth together with the NYC.
Royd Likando, the vice chairperson of the Zambezi Regional Youth Forum explained that the main purpose for the implementation plan for the Covid-19 youth campaign is to disseminate information about covid-19 and educate the families, friends as well as commit to stop the spread of the virus.
He further stated the target is to recruit four young people per constituency within the region, which has eight constituencies. Each constituency must have four volunteers who are going to engage and disseminate information at household level.
The volunteers will be based in the constituencies and should be in the age range of 18 to 35 as well as be able to communicate fluently in a vernacular language spoken in that particular community.
According to Likando, the volunteers have already received virtual training on basic information about Covid-19 such as the symptoms of this virus, how it is spread and how to prevent its spread.
He further stated that in order to prevent the spread of the virus within the community, each volunteer will be provided with hand gloves, reusable face masks as well as hand sanitisers.