Building resilient communities
THE Covid-19 pandemic is the biggest economic and social crisis at the moment and it has greatly impacted on various communities across the globe.
The impact of the pandemic is being felt now, the coming months and potentially in years to come, thereby testing our resilience.
Community resilience is the sustained ability of a community to withstand and recover from adversities such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Given that resources are limited in the wake of the pandemic, it is important to build community resilience.
Various interventions have been introduced to curb the infectious disease. These include the ongoing lockdowns in various countries, physical distancing and economic packages to reinforce community resilience.
Historical lessons from post disaster studies such as the Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Japan earthquake in 2011 reveal that the most significant predictor of survival and recovery is the extent to which people know each other and feel a sense of duty and responsibility to each other.
Research supports that a connected, trusting community where people know each other survive and recover better than those less connected within household, neighbourhood and community networks.
The building blocks of community resilience that affect both a community’s pre-event vulnerability to crisis and its adaptive capacity to recover include the physical and psychological health of the population, social and economic well-being, individual, family, and community knowledge, as well as attitudes regarding self-reliance and self-help.
There is also need for effective risk communication, as well as integration of Government and non-governmental organisations’ plans.
It is therefore critical to increase community resilience in light of Covid-19 through implementing effective precautionary measures against the virus.
Currently, community transmission of the infectious disease is already evident. People with no history of travel are being infected.
How then do we build community resilience? This rests on how community members practice a healthy lifestyle.
Firstly, there is need for effective risk communication on Covid-19. Risk communication is an interactive process that involves the exchange of information between parties about sensitive issues. Effective risk communication is essential to resilience because it provides accurate information about dangers and behavioural options for mitigation. It increases knowledge and therefore bolsters a community’s adaptive capacity.
Community education will see individuals knowing where to turn to for help both for themselves and their neighbours, thereby enabling the entire community to be resilient in the face of the pandemic.
Community resilience can also be enhanced through participatory citizen engagement in decision making for planning, response and recovery activities. Citizen engagement entails the active participation of the community in response and recovery planning, to ensure that plans reflect the views and perspectives of a wide range of public health system stakeholders, particularly those representing populations who are at risk.
Citizen engagement is being evidenced by citizens offering support through donations of food and personal protective equipment to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic.
The connection between individuals and organizations contributes to the resilience of a community as individuals can mobilize the needed resources more quickly.
For a community to develop a capacity to prevent, withstand and mitigate the stress of a crisis, there is need for a multi-sectorial approach as capacities vary and differ among systems of groups, networks and organisations.
Collective resilience is enhanced when a set of networked adaptive capacities are linked together through the application of the private, public partnership.
Promoting extensive partnership through community and governmental organisations ensures that preparations, response and recovery activities have a wide reach with stronger ties to the community and increased knowledge and capacity for support service.
According to research, greater integration of organisations increase trust and knowledge among the community members. This maximises anticipation in emergency preparedness.
In order to build community resilience during the Covid-19 era, communities must actively engage each other on health issues. They should interrogate personal preparedness, and develop social networks. Health-promoting opportunities must also be created in order to improve the physical and psychological health of the community. They should also plan programs that address and support the functional needs of the community.
Let us not lose hope, it shall come to pass.
Greta Mauwa is an Intern Community Psychologist under the Allied Health Professional Council. She writes in her personal capacity.