THE ADAPTATION TO LIFE DURING COVID-19

1. The COVID-19 is undoubtedly an unprecedented situation any government might have dealt with because it attacks every race, age and sex.

2. The solutions to the current trade-off between saving the economy and saving lives are as follows:

• Establish airbridges and hubs across the world to move humanitarian health workers, aids and supplies to where they are needed most.
• Establish health QR codes with code colors indicating the green code allows you to move freely, yellow code requires a seven-day self-quarantine and red code requires a 14-day self-quarantine. 
• Deliver essential laboratory equipment to test for the virus, and medical supplies to treat people;
• Install handwashing stations in camps and settlements.
• Continued launch of public information campaigns against fake news on the virus and fake treatments and (traditional) medicine as well as self protection against the virus.

3. With these solutions in place, the world economy will safely reopen.

The problem we are trying to solve is the safe reopening of the world economy. COVID-19 looks set to be with us some years to come and so far the disease doesn't have a specific treatment nor a vaccine. The only known medicine is self-isolation which in return has created unemployment. If we continue to stay at home, we might end up having more hunger related deaths than those related to the virus when it will be fully defeated. 
The pandemic has affected the entire world, apart from health workers, the rest of us are constrained to work.

Therefore, in order to gradually adapt to the new normal and safely work with the corona virus among us, we propose the above mentioned strategic initiatives as multi-focal platforms for the safer reopening of our economy and the implementation of our micro-project at the country level.

1 COVID‑19 transmission is controlled to a level of sporadic cases and clusters of cases, from known contacts or importations and the incidence of new cases should be maintained at a level that the health system can manage with substantial clinical care capacity in reserve.

2 Sufficient health system and public health capacities are in place to enable the major shift from detecting and treating mainly serious cases to detecting and isolating all cases, irrespective of severity and origin.

3 Outbreak risks in high-vulnerability settings are minimized, which requires major drivers and/or amplifiers of COVID‑19 transmission to have been identified, with appropriate measures in place to minimize the risk of new outbreaks and nonsocial transmission.

4 Workplace preventive measures are established to reduce risk, including the appropriate directives and capacities to promote and enable standard COVID-19 prevention measures in terms of physical distancing, hand washing, respiratory etiquette and temperature monitoring.

5 Risk of imported cases managed through an analysis of the likely origin and routes of importations, and measures in place to rapidly detect and manage suspected cases among travelers, including the capacity to quarantine. 6 Communities are fully engaged and understand that the transition entails a major shift.

Our solution serve mainly the working class.

Reopening the economy will have an impact they've always enjoyed before the pandemic. 

For instance in Kenya the government have come up with E-learning, this is a good idea to keep our children learning but it is still a challenge to parents who have lost their jobs since they don't have money to buy internet.

Therefore, for reopening the economy sounds a rebirth to many informal workers.

The project will ensure that people are empowered with good directives, guidance and understanding on how the reopen is going to happen. Indeed, opening will be in phases, which will differ regionally. Even within counties, people will be advised to expect local variations based on county-by-county data. For a business, laying the groundwork to reopen begins by monitoring how close to easing restrictions a region is. If a company operates in different counties, or metropolitan areas, it should set up a dashboard to monitor each area. 

- Our solution will increase the Kenyan testing capacity, able to test more than 200,000 persons per day compared the 3000 testing capacity we have right now.

- With the increased testing capacity, the government will be able to curb the spread of the virus in a shorter period.

- With the QR codes in place we will be able to maintain Steady State of Low-Level or No Transmission and the infection risks will be minimized as the QR will be having indicators with red meaning risk, yellow meaning low risk and green meaning pass.

- With Covid-19 testing available at scale we will Overcome this public health and economic crisis.

We aim to establish establish health QR codes for everyone in the country and everyone who enters the country which would work with code colors as indicators. That is, the green code allows you to move freely. The yellow code requires a seven-day self-quarantine. The red code requires a 14-day self-quarantine. The yellow and red codes can be turned green after the respective quarantine time is over. 

This health surveillance system has been applied in most cities in Zhejiang Province of China, and would be implemented in Kenya as well to curb the spread quickly.

Within this ample framework of complexity, we are addressing the media impact and its role into reopening the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the following subtopics:
• Effective health communication for the adoption of sustainable preventive measures and curtailing misinformation;
• Public health communication to increase psychological resources and resilience in distinct age groups and socioeconomic conditions;
• Effective strategies for helping individuals in dealing with social and physical distancing;
• Reduction of stigma, prejudice, discrimination, injustice and inequalities.

The following are the main points of focus that makes believe that our solution will have a positive impact to our communities as it is:

• Availing project facilities of UN Habitat to curb the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate impacts
• Activating existing urban community networks
• Supporting WASH in informal settlements at selected key public points across the urban settings
• Promoting safe urban mobility and connectivity in collaboration with public transport operators and other stakeholders
• Supporting messaging, publicity, outreach and media

We are currently serving close to 6 million people in the Nyanza region, in the southwestern part of Kenya, we aim to serve 15 million next year which means will be serving the entire West from North to South as we envision to cover the entire Kenya in 5 years that more than 47 millions.

- Serve 15 million next year in the western part of Kenya from North to South which includes Nyanza region, Western Province and West Pokot.

- By the end of the 5th year from today (2025) we envision to be covering the entire Kenya (47 million)

Below are goals for the next 5 years:

NATIONAL CAPACITY BUILDING 

ORGANIZATIONAL & INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY BUILDING 

Human Equal Rights Observers CAPACITY BUILDING 

RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE CREATION  

KNOWLEDGE SHARING THROUGH NETWORKING

PARTNERSHIPS 

EXCHANGES

- Financial and Technological barriers

Through partners with other organizations and funding from Organizations that have enough funds.

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• The organization has 10 departments for its proper functionality as detailed below with heads of each department:

• -Human resources and Administration         : DR CHARLES KINUTHIA     
• -Operations Manager                                  : SYLVANS MUTUA
• -Director of finance                                    : MITCHELL AIDA
• -Policy and communications coordinator      : ANNA MAY VENTURA
• -Strategic communications manager            : MONICA MOYA
• -Program coordinator                                  : LEE CHANG
• -Director of Development                            : ANNA SANCHEZ
• -Projects Manager                                       : VICTOR TENORIO
• -Legal affairs                                              : SYLVESTER BISIMWA
• -Outreach and sensitization coordinator      : CAROLINE ANYANGO

In total we have 86 employees.

A project Management Committee will be headed by Mr. VICTOR TENORIO. Victor is the Project manager of HERO Kenya. He is a holder of a master’s degree in Educational Planning, Economics, and International Development (MA. EPEID), from the University of North Texas. He holds a diploma in Community-Based Rehabilitation from Breneu University, Department of Community Disability Studies, and a degree in Adult and Community Education from North Arizona University. He has vast experience in disability issues. There will be HERO’s head of Outreach department Mrs Caroline Anyango who will be accompanied by two field officers, an accountant, and a few support staff that will occasionally be called up to give a hand. Except for the accountant that will be contracted by the project, the rest of the project team are already available volunteers of the organization. The Executive Director will be working hand in hand with the project committee to ensure that everything happened according to the initial fastidious plan.

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Equal Human Rights Observers (HERO) Human Equal Rights Observers is founded on facts-based evidence of all sorts of inequalities, injustice and abuses experienced worldwide. We are an independent, non-governmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals, corporates and foundations from all corners of the world. Though we work in collaboration with the Kenyan Government, we accept no government funds, directly or indirectly only privately sourced revenues to ensure our independence. We are a group of lawyers, professors, doctors, journalists and country experts of 60-plus nationalities from 5 continents who work together to not only report inequality, injustice and abuses of human equal rights but also find solutions to these persisting problems through sponsorship, training and capacity building. We envision a world where everyone is valued and has equal opportunity to thrive without hiccups.

Our current donors are willing to continue working with us and we are looking for new donors as well.