We have published our second brief synthesizing insights relevant to the ongoing COVID-19 response, this one based on the two immersion studies conducted by our team in Uganda. Like the Indonesia brief, we have highlighted key relevant findings along with the implications for COVID-19 programming and policies in Uganda.

The studies in Uganda were conducted in 2017 and involved training a team of enthusiastic Ugandan researchers who lived with 50 families across 15 different districts in northern, eastern, and central Uganda.

Some of the insights include, for example, that i) daily chores such as collecting water are time consuming and as women tend to also handle day-to-day education and health matters, they may be under increased pressure and stress with potential impacts on husband-wife relationships; ii) most people prefer to receive cash assistance rather than in-kind assistance; and iii) most families prefer to sell directly to middlemen that come to the village/their farms because of the convenience which may limit their options during the current COVID crisis.

As one of our studies in Uganda also focused on old people’s experiences with the Uganda Senior Citizen Grants, we have highlighted insights that are particularly relevant for this group as well.

View the full brief here.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to hit low income countries – and specifically the poorest people within these countries – the hardest. Governments, UN Agencies and development programmes need to react both quickly and effectively to prevent the worst from happening. Global public health programmes have taught us that the best health policies and programmes are those which are evidence-based. This has already proven imperative during this crisis, as people are being asked to dramatically alter their daily lives in order to keep themselves and those around them safe.

At Empatika we know that, for example, government messaging through WhatsApp groups and on Facebook is not sufficient to promote behaviour change, even for practices as simple as washing hands. There is ample evidence from our immersion research that such messages are often ignored and that people’s understanding of health, hygiene and cleanliness is needed to support change.

Why do some health behaviour change programmes work and others do not? Our immersion-based research provides insights into people’s everyday lives and allows us to consider what people say and what they do, within their own reality. By living with families in over 75 rural and urban locations in Indonesia, we have gathered insights that can be used to address public health challenges. These details are essential to tailoring messages and approaches to address the drivers of key health behaviours, like hand washing, breast feeding, or health seeking practices.

Social distancing and travel restrictions limit the options available to collect up-to-date information on how people are responding to the pandemic. However, Empatika’s extensive experiential insights gathered over more than six years may help inform responsive interventions. This includes a network of families across Indonesia with whom we have lived and can communicate with remotely to assess behaviour change and community responses to the crisis. We hope to be able to share these insights and their implications to support policy makers and programmes to design the most effective interventions and forms of support possible to help communities get through the pandemic.

Following up on emerging topics and issues highlighted during the exploratory research phase last November, in February our team undertook structured research in the same four communities. We combined several participatory approaches and tools, including:

Participatory Focus Group Discussions (pFGDs) with Moms, Fathers, Older Women, Health Service Providers, and Cadres

(click on each image to learn more)

We’re excited that our long history of work in Bangladesh is continuing this year with a new study on Child Labour. As part of preparing for this study, in mid-February two members of our core team trained a new batch of local Bangladeshi researchers in the RCA Level 1 training, which includes three days of classroom training along with a two-night pilot immersion. Our team was assisted by some of the Bangladeshi researchers that we have worked with for previous studies (some of whom we’ve worked with for over five years now!) who we’re lucky to have back joining this study as well. The main study fieldwork will take place from early to mid-March.

Following the 2018 earthquake and tsunami in Central Sulawesi, and two earthquakes in West Nusa Tenggara, some of the international humanitarian partners introduced multi-purpose cash assistance programmes to help people meet their basic needs. Empatika was asked to do qualitative assessment of MPCA programmes in the Central Sulawesi districts of Palu, Donggala, and Sigi along with the West Nusa Tenggara district of North Lombok to inform learning about best practices in MPC assistance and transfers during emergencies from the perspectives of beneficiaries.

The study was conducted using scoping immersions and participatory focus group discussions (pFGDs) in eight communities (two in each district) in an attempt to understand beneficiary perspectives and the local context. Follow-up digital storytelling workshops were conducted in two of the communities (one in Sigi and one in North Lombok) to dig deeper into contextual and personal experiences with the programme. In North Lombok, we conducted two separate DST workshops in order to include some women from a remote area in this community with limited access to services and limited opportunities for having their voices heard.

Our researchers learned about this remote area during the scoping immersion, when some posyandu cadres had shared that there were some areas of the community that faced poor access including for accessing the MPC assistance. Following this, we went to the upper parts of the village to learn more, where we met another posyandu cadre who offered to take us to one of these communities. She explained that this particular area did not receive the MPCA although many women were initially registered. The area is reached by a small walking path which goes up and down a ravine (around a 1.5-hour round trip walk). This greatly helped the researchers in understanding the access challenges that some of the areas of this village face. The researchers also had some brief discussions with some women in the community, where they learned about their disappointment in not receiving the assistance.

This remote area was actually not as affected by the earthquake compared to the areas of the village lower down the mountain because they are still using more traditional wooden homes. However, this area faces serious access challenges and is much poorer overall. When we visited the area again for the DST workshop, the women we spoke with were reluctant to participate at first. Some felt that they didn't have any interesting stories to tell while others were afraid about their ability to write or draw. However, after some encouragement by us to emphasize that simple stories can be just as good, and showing the women some examples of DSTs made by people in other areas of Indonesia, they agreed to give it a shot. It turned that all of the women in the group had trouble reading and writing in the Indonesian language (as most had limited education and they mainly used their local language) so rather than having the women write their down their stories, we helped them develop more detailed storyboards and then let them tell us their stories verbally. Our team developed scripts based on their storyboards to assist with developing cues for what the women were planning to talk about for each of their drawings and photos that would be appearing in their story.

It's always exciting in any DST workshop when all participants successfully finish recording their narration, and this was definitely no exception! Getting to watch the completed videos (we projected onto the bamboo wall of one of their kitchens :-)) with these mothers, now with proud smiles, was a great experience.

Their videos also provided powerful illustrations of their experiences since the earthquake and of some of the struggles they face in their daily lives. Many of the mothers shared about their disappointment in not receiving the MPC assistance; others shared about the confusion and embarrassment when they walked over an hour down the mountain only to find out that their names were not included in the final beneficiary list; others shared about the daily challenges that they face; and many voiced their motivation to continue to work for their children and shared their hopes that better fortune will come.

Below are some screenshots from this DST workshop along with the workshops in other part of the Lombok community and in Sigi, Central Sulawesi.