How the C-19 prize winners are Navigating the Pandemic times
In 2020 the Uganda Response Innovation Lab rewarded innovators in the areas of prevention and response, continuous learning, livelihoods and refugee-led innovations that were responding to the fight against COVID -19.
The uncertain times brought about by the pandemic have shown us that adaptation is key to survival. The COVID -19 prize winners have been no exception to this. During follow up sessions, the innovators shared with the Response Innovation Lab what their journey has been like since the outbreak of the pandemic.
Finding ways to become sustainable
A number of innovators started by donating products like masks, soap, handwashing stations e.t.c to support communities cope with the pandemic. This was possible because many of them had received funds to respond to the pandemic. A year later, it was evident that sustainability strategies needed to take a front seat and that finding ways of generating income was necessary for them to be able to continue providing free support to the most vulnerable without depending on charity funding.
For example, Kimuli Fashionability not only donates their inclusive masks to those that need them, they have gone ahead to find market for their masks and the other products they make in the US - Chicago.
Munguchi Medical Center is also now making masks for the general public to buy in addition to the donations they have made to schools and medical staff.
Other innovators like Fortunate Niwamanya have started thinking about how to reach out to people outside their industry. Niwamanya said “At the start of the pandemic we were selling over 100 face shields a day, with the arrival of the vaccine, sales have dropped to about 20 a day. We’d like to approach partners like the Ministry of Health and manufacturing industries who are all year round users to buy our face shields.”
Even if the process is not as fast as they would have liked, innovators that designed software that facilitates social distancing are taking advantage of the new way of operating to onboard more clients to their systems. Powell Pay for example was able to interest two more schools in addition to the eight they had signed up for the school fees paying function in their system. NFT Mawazo is also directing efforts towards having more clients for their Venue CheckIn Services digital system. Sales teams are being sent out to onboard clients.
Exercising Creativity
In the continuous education track, innovators have had to be flexible and adjust accordingly for learning to continue. When learners are at home, innovators like Planning for Tomorrow Youth Organization conduct home learning, when schools are open, the learners attend school as usual.
The school calendar has drastically changed, it is difficult to say when schools will be open or be on break. Early June saw schools that had just reopened close to control the spread of COVID-19 during it’s 2nd wave in Uganda. This unpredictable pattern has presented a challenge of parents not being ready with fees when schools open. The Acholi Education Initiative is preparing parents to be ready by saving and investing with saving groups.
The pandemic has also caused innovators to look inward and maximize already existing resources in communities. Elevate’s Village teach program saw parents come up with a strategy where they took turns to buy newspapers for their children to keep learning through the education section. This education section has always existed, but the pandemic exposed how it can be leveraged to support continuous learning.
For some like Kyemeire International Vocational Secondary School they had to pivot how they operate in order to stay relevant. The school worked with teachers outside formal classrooms to mobilize volunteer teachers living in the community, provide them with access to the school library, laboratories and scholastics so that they would ably reach out to children in their communities.
Applying Human-Centered Design
The innovators have also learnt that for community interventions to be successful, several stakeholders in the community need to be involved. Here is Life and Elevate trained and encouraged parents to take part in school activities. This built a sense of ownership in whatever happened in the schools thus making parents more involved in children’s learning and deliberate to ensure that learning continued even with schools closed. The Acholi Education initiative continues to challenge the local government of Amuru district to come up with school programs that can continue even in these unprecedented times.
Just like the human race keeps learning new things about the virus and responds accordingly, a number of innovators who designed products kept learning and making improvements based on what they had learned. The Youth Social Advocacy Team redesigned their hand washing facility to support the disabled who could not step by incorporating an elbow handle. They also lowered the facility to enable easier use by children. These additions were possible due to the feedback they received that guided the redesign of the facility.
Next Steps
The innovators have unanimously expressed interest in being better able to measure their impact on the communities . They said this would help them know if they are being relevant or if they need to get back to the drawing board and rethink their approaches. In the next few months, RIL Uganda is organising trainings to equip them in this area and other areas like safeguarding, innovation value chain and intellectual property management (in partnership with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, https://www.responseinnovationlab.com/about-news/ril-uganda-mou-signing-with-mosti) resource mobilization and sustainability as were pointed out during a survey that RIL conducted.
One cannot say that the journey has been smooth for the innovators, most certainly not! They have had to maneuver unanticipated challenges that keep showing up and have quickly learnt that they need to keep adapting. Being rigid has no place if they are to flourish.