EU, British Council take COVID-19 awareness to rural areas in Adamawa

European Union (EU) and the British Council have taken the war against the COVID-19 pandemic to rural areas in Adamawa State.

The campaign will employ a door-to-door communicative system from trained residents using megaphones to reach out to their targeted audiences.

The project, public engagement and awareness education on COVID-19 pandemic in Adamawa State, anchored by a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Global Peace Development (GPD) is to train rural dwellers on basic facts and checks against the dreaded coronavirus.

According to the Director of GPD, Ebruke Onajite Esike, the trainees engaged for six months were drawn from Mubi North and South, Yola north and south, Demsa and Numan local governments with basic education and ability to communicate with fellow locales, will be trained for two days.

The state team lead of Managing Conflict in Northeast Nigeria (MCN), a wing of the British Council, Ahmed Abdulkadir Bello said it is unfortunate that many Nigerians still see the battle against coronavirus as unnecessary.

“It is saddening to note that many of our people in Nigeria still see coronavirus as political rather than a pandemic,” Bello said.

“That is why we have decided to support this programme that intends to use people at the grassroots in our pilot scheme to preach the essence, facts, myths and preventive protocols of COVID-19.”

The commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, Umar Muhammed, enjoined the trainees to see the war against the virus as a “do or die.”

Represented by the ministry’s chief administrative officer, Mrs Anasili Yunusa, the commissioner advised the residents to “take this programme seriously because it is one of the crucial campaigns to help them fight the killer virus.”