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Operationalizing Community Engagement for Humanitarian Response to Outbreaks 

A masked woman interviews a woman who is sitting in a green chair holding her child.
Sacha Myers / Save the Children
Date:
Time:
6:30am - 8:00am ET
Location:
Online
Organizer:
IDEAL

This event was a session at the Food Security COVID-19 Learning Event.

What does it mean for organizations to be ready with communication and community engagement for the next epidemic or pandemic? This session provided an opportunity for response organizations to reflect on lessons learned during COVID-19 and apply them to readiness actions needed for the next epidemic or pandemic. Participants reviewed the proposed content of a Communicating with Communities: Risk Communication and Community Engagement Readiness Kit (RCCE Readiness Kit) under development by the READY Initiative, which is a compendium of tools linked to minimum required actions that humanitarian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should take across outbreak response phases to facilitate a more community-centered response. 

Speakers

Kathryn Bertram, Senior Social and Behavior Change Advisor, READY Initiative, USAID

Kathryn Bertram is the Senior Social and Behavior Change Advisor on the USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance’s READY Initiative. Kathryn has been with Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs for 11 years, where she provides advocacy and behavior change leadership on a range of public health areas, including pandemics/epidemics, malaria, child survival, and nutrition. For the past year, she co-leads a global RCCE sub-group on community engagement in low resource settings.

Carla Sanchez, Advisor for Behavior Change and Community Health, Save the Children US

Carla Sanchez is an Advisor for Behavior Change and Community Health with Save the Children US. Carla has been with Save the Children for five years and has provided technical assistance to global and country programs to support their Social Behavior Change, Community Engagement, and RCCE strategy development and implementation, working in various health areas including Maternal, Newborn, Child Health, Nutrition, Malaria, Ebola, Zika and COVID-19 in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.