New York, New York, Dec 3: Living Goods and The Access Challenge have signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding to innovatively support community health workers (CHWs) in the fight against COVID-19 through the One by One: Target COVID-19 Campaign.  Through this partnership, Living Goods will be able to leverage the resources of Campaign partners including the Africa CDC, WHO AFRO and government health ministries to ensure that the more than 4,400 CHWs it directly supports across 20 Ugandan districts have increased access to accurate and trustworthy information, education, and communications materials on COVID prevention and control.

“CHWs are one of the most important assets in the fight against COVID-19. Community health workers are on the frontlines of fighting COVID-19, providing invaluable primary health care and education to communities across Africa,” said Kate Campana, CEO of the Access Challenge, adding, “If CHWs don’t have the right information at their fingertips, they cannot effectively safe and protect the millions of people who rely on them as their front-line healthcare providers.”

The Target COVID-19 campaign was designed in partnership with the Africa CDC, African Union, The Access Challenge, and the Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation to support the Africa CDC’s Joint Continental Strategy in response to COVID-19. Since then, the campaign has raised more than US$4 million to support the Africa COVID-19 Response Fund. The campaign has also launched a series of open-source communications materials aimed at equipping African populations with accurate COVID-19 prevention strategies.  Through the Living Goods and Access Challenge partnership, Living Goods will be able to get One by One: Target COVID-19 communications materials into the hands of the CHWs it supports. Materials will be delivered through radio programs, WhatsApp messages and posters.

“We are excited to draw on the best-in-class resources from across the African continent that the Target 19 Campaign will provide to the CHWs Living Goods supports,” said Liz Jarman, CEO of Living Goods. “This will be a real win-win by ensuring that CHWs have the resources they need to effectively prevent, monitor, and respond to the pandemic, while supporting the campaign’s goal to equip communities with accurate information on COVID-19 prevention.”

Living Goods will be joining a coalition of partners who are committed to combatting COVID-19 as well as to using the momentum around the pandemic to facilitate universal access to health across the continent. Other members of the One by One coalition include The Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, MSD for Mothers, Special Olympics, Women in Global Health: Cameroon, Clouds Media Group, the African Union and the Africa CDC.

Living Goods

Living Goods is a non-profit organization that saves lives at scale by supporting digitally empowered community health workers (CHWs) who deliver care on call—making it easy for families in need to get the care they need. Beginning its operations in Uganda in 2007 and expanding into Kenya in 2015, Living Goods works with governments and partners to ensure community health workers have access to the digital technology, medical treatments, supervision and compensation to cost-effectively deliver high quality, impactful health services. At the end of 2019, Living Goods was supporting more than 10,000 CHWs in Kenya and Uganda to deliver care to more than 8 million people.  Learn more at www.livinggoods.org

One by One: Target COVID-19

One by One: Target COVID-19 is a pan-African, coalition-driven communications and advocacy campaign created by The Access Challenge, the African Union, the Africa CDC, and the Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete Foundation. The Coalition supports the African Union in its COVID-19 response by advocating for increased financing for the Africa COVID-19 Response Fund to strengthen the Africa CDC’s capacity for securing essential diagnostics and medical supplies. The Campaign is spearheading a mass media campaign which mobilizes cultural influencers to promote COVID testing and social prevention measures across the continent.

For media enquiries, please contact Cordelia Kwon at cordelia.kwon@accesschallenge.org