THE 52ND Twitter Chat on Youth Efforts in Combating Covid–19 at Community Level in Kano Discussed on Thursday, 8TH October, 2020 with Abubakar M. Usman, Multimedia Journalist and A Beneficiary of CITAD’S Youth Leadership Training on Covid-19.

The strength of ICT amidst the global pandemic of Covid – 19 has been loudly spelt out as it remained unshaken ever since the emergence of this global pandemic but becomes the commodity for every home and organization as it stands the only unaffected medium to share information, transact businesses, entertainments and working as a team. This has no doubt pleased ICT advocates across the global for this supports their campaign and advocacy work for the world to embrace the use of technology tools for better performance and timely delivery of team tasks.

The Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) as a non-governmental and non-for-profit organization has since continue to capitalize on its core mandate; using ICTs for development to initiate engagements to curb the spread of Covid – 19 pandemics. Twitter series is one of such engagements run by CITAD, it comes twice in a week; Tuesdays and Thursdays, lasting for an hour. Resource persons are invited to talk on the chosen topic and they also respond to questions by the participants.

Youth Effort in Combating Covid – 19 at Community Level in Kano is the topic discussed on Thursday, 8th October, 2020 with Abubakar M. Usman, multi media journalist and a beneficiary of CITAD’s youth leadership training on Covid – 19. He took the participants through the success stories youth effort recorded, taking Kano state as a case study, challenges encountered and what needs to be done to support youth effort to deliver more.

Below is the crude chat as extracted from the twitter flatform:

  1. Hello everyone, do join me to welcome our today’s twitter chat guest, Abubakar M Usman, a multi-media journalist and @ICTAdvocates beneficiary of #YLTonCovid19 who will discuss on Youth Efforts on Combatting Covid19 at Community Level in Kano? Thanks to everyone, am glad to be here today
  2. Please sir can you start by telling us the kind of activities you are doing at community level? Well, after been trained by @ICTAdvocates I designed my activities to reach 100 people in community for the Sensitization against
  3. What kind of activities did you conducted after the training, sir? Considering the kind of community am living in, I re-strategized my activities by inviting 6 youth association leaders for a step-down training.
  4. Because I believe using young people for the sensitization would help to reach a number of people at grass root level.
  5. After the step-down training, all of them gave me a set date for the step-down training on their various members at organizational level.
  6. My activities have been divided into four different days
  7. The first activity carried out at Ibn Yasar Islamiyya at Rimin Kebe area of Ungogo local government. 26 students were sensitized, while 4 hand sanitizers & 150 pieces of face mask were distributed to the school authority.
  8. While the second group involved 14 elderly men at Galula Primary health care.
  9. The third activity according to my work plan, held on 19th Sept. 2020 at Gadar-Katako area of Romin Kebe community, 20 young people were reached for the awareness on the danger of #Covid_19
  10. The last activity consists of two groups; the First group consists of 35 women which were sensitized at Galula Primary health care clinic in Rimin Kebe.
  11. These are the four different activities I carried in Rimin Kebe to convert the effect of #Covid_19   at the community level.
  12. so far how far have your impacts and success stories from the community as a result of the covid 19 awareness in the grass root? Initially, I can say majority members of my community doesn’t believe in the existence of #Covid_19, thanks to @ICTAdvocates intervention. Initially, my intention was to reach 100 people but at the end of the sensitization I reach almost 200 people, while many are asking for more intervention on the Corona pandemic. So, after the Sensitization, we have positive behavioural changes among the community members, like the use of face mask, observing social distancing and many more protocols of #Covid_19
  13. Can you tell us the perception of the community people when you started the activities and how you were able to changed their previous belief on the virus? Initially, people didn’t pay much attention on the program, but after I trained those 20 young people, they continue carrying the message to their family & friends, which I believe change their perception on the program.
  14. Mr @official_Rabab organizing such sensitizations requires some support, including the financial, materials and even the human resources. So how did you get funds to carry out such activities?
  15. what are some of the challenges you encountered at the course of your advocacy and please suggest ways you think, that need improvement? One of the challenges I faced during the sensitization/advocacy is that, the head of the town of Galula didn’t really give us maximum cooperation.
  16. I have to write a letter using @ICTAdvocates logo on it for him to allow us to carried out activities in his area, in the future a letter of advocacy or introduction should be given to sub-grantees by @ICTAdvocates because it will help to achieve desired goals.
  17. do you think there is still need for youth to do more in their effort to fight #Covid19 in Kano state and beyond? Of course, youth should be carried along to continue passing the right information on #Covid_19, because they have a big role to play in fighting the pandemic.
  18. What other external support do youth need to better champion the course of fighting this #Covid19 pandemic? For now, distribution of hand sanitizers and face mask will help a lot, because even after the Sensitization many people are calling me for hand sanitizers and face masks. #CITADagainstCovid19
  19. there were lot of misinformation and disinformation at early period of the pandemic, do you come across any in your community? how do you come about it? #CITADAgainstCovid19 Of course I did, some members of my community were saying #Covid_19 only affects rich people while others said NGOs are the one that brought the pandemic into the country.
  20. There are many misinformation about #Covid_19 so, government as well as non-governmental organization have to work on this.
  21. As we are approaching the end of this discussion, can you tell us the challenges you faced while doing your campaign and some of your recommendations to @KanostateNg and people to ensure we win this fight in the state