Community Mobilisation in Response to Avian Influenza

This initiative uses participatory, educational-yet-entertaining approaches to engage communities in learning about, and preparing for, a possible health emergency. The involvement of children and young people has been key. For example,

• Live performance: A local group supported by CARE created a local drama on AI, using messages they developed together, in the local language. The 18 members comprising the drama troupe were primarily school drop-outs and other youth from IDP camps; they performed the play in public places including markets, schools, IDP camps, and primary schools. Audiences were encouraged to ask questions about the information presented in the drama. Using information and communication technology (ICT) tools for sharing the performances with borader audiences, CARE documented the community AI drama on video, in the local language, with English subtitles. The video compact disks (VCDs) and DVDs are being shared with stakeholders as well as the district director of health services in Gulu.
• School-based sensitisation: In the primary schools, CARE and its partners have initiated debates among the pupils as well as role-plays and songs about avian flu issues. (The hope is that schoolchildren will carry messages about the disease to their homes.)

Basic sharing of AI information is also a core strategy, and centrally involves use of ICTs, printed materials, and face-to-face encounters. For example,

• ICTs: CARE Uganda is bolstering the efforts of local radio stations to raise awareness about AI - by, for instance, carrying spot messages on avian flu. Specifically, CARE staff and partners occasionally hold radio talk shows, during which veterinary officers and community development officers provide the public with the opportunity to ask questions during the show.
• Printed materials: AI messages are being integrated in all hygiene promotion training packages and animal husbandry messages for farmers participating in the CARE economic empowerment projects for women in IDP camps. In addition, CARE has distributed AI information, education, and communication (IEC) materials - booklets and leaflets - to partners, local leaders and other institutions. These materials are being designed so they can supplement the drama and informational materials as well.
• Face-to-face gatherings: During local meetings, villagers are exposed to AI-related educational information and behaviour change messages.

Health.

Organisers explain that Uganda's involvement in the global campaign against AI was activated, in part, by the September 2006 AI outbreak among poultry in Juba, South Sudan (Click here to read about this outbreak.) Uganda and Southern Sudan have forged increasingly tight social, political, and economic links, which have led to concern that AI may spread to various regions of northern Uganda and beyond. CARE describes Uganda as a conflict-prone and poverty-stricken part of the world which has repeatedly experienced bouts of communicable diseases due to the poor nature of living
conditions - characteristics rendering Uganda both vulnerable to the spread of avian flu and at risk of suffering dire implications were it to spread.

CARE Uganda claims that, as a result of these community mobilisation efforts, the level of AI awareness has increased. They claim that birds are no longer being purchased from suspect areas such as sub-counties bordering Sudan. In some IDP camps, free-range systems have been reduced, and most farmers are now rearing their birds in simple cages
called "Koro gweno". They cite the following specific example of increased awareness: In October 2006, there was an outbreak of a poultry disease in the village of Adilang, in the Pader district. Although the disease turned out not to be AI, CARE Uganda believes that its intervention contributed to the fact that the community responded very quickly by burying all the dead birds and locking up the remaining birds. Reporting was fast, as all the local leaders and the veterinary officer were informed about the crisis.