Fight Coronavirus

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL is mobilizing to ensure operational continuity, protecting our teams and supporting them to be able to stay and deliver, providing their valuable expertise and skills protecting vulnerable people living in places where we operate, bringing our specialised knowledge and experience to support those who need it the most. 

As a humanitarian organization, SOLIDARITIES INTERNATIONAL works with more than 2,000 people in 17 countries, supporting an estimated 4 million people a year, around the world. Many of the people we support are already suffering or will soon suffer the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Right now, we are extremely concerned about the impacts of COVID-19 on people where we work, in places where baseline levels of public health are significantly below those in developed countries. In these places the elderly and other vulnerable people including people with underlying medical conditions, already have little access to specific protections and support, and when they are exposed to the virus, they may be some of the first pay the ultimate price through no fault of their own.  

In these places, on a day to day basis people struggle to make ends meet, living hand-to-mouth and facing serious socio-economic challenges including extreme poverty. The impacts of the pandemic in terms of losses of livelihoods will cause people to adopt extreme coping mechanisms and unquestionably lead to fatalities.  

In these places people who have been exposed to violence and conflict have fled and now live in overcrowded, unsanitary slums and camps, with limited or no access to safe drinking water, safe sanitation facilities or systems, and a lack of access to the most basic of hygiene products such as soap. 

In these places people continue to face persecution and marginalisation, meaning very limited or no access to social safety nets, and when exposed to the virus they will have nowhere to turn to for support.  

And in these places governance challenges, corruption, and a lack of resources leading to chronic underdevelopment means public healthcare infrastructures and systems simply do not have the capacities required to deal with this crisis.  

Under these conditions, our top priority is to protect the health of our teams and in doing so ensure we can provide assistance to the vulnerable populations with whom we already work. To meet this unprecedented humanitarian challenge, we have been doing everything we can for several weeks now to limit health risks, support our teams and adapt their operational procedures and responses. 

More than ever, solidarity must be our first response and we see it not as our duty as humanitarians but also as our responsibility as humans, to intervene in this unprecedented health crisis and protect the most vulnerable people at risk, regardless of national and international boundaries.  

First of all, we are using our expertise and extensive as key tools in the fight against epidemics, particularly in raising awareness of good hygiene and hand-washing practices, through community engagement and public campaigns, while also ensuring people have access to much needed hygiene products such as soap and chlorine/disinfectant.  

At the same time, we are working with partners and contributing to global efforts to find appropriate solutions and stem the spread of the virus. 

Wherever and however possible, we are and will continue to ensure that our water, hygiene and sanitation, food security and other activities are maintained, ensuring people continue to receive the critical assistance they need as a result of disasters, crises, war, violence and extreme poverty.  

It is our mandate and our duty.