HUMANITARIAN organisation, Caritas Harare, has taken COVID-19 awareness campaigns to vulnerable communities as Zimbabwe battles to contain the deadly pandemic that has killed 26 people. BY MOSES MATENGA The organisation, that has been assisting vulnerable communities with water and nutrition projects over the years, said it was providing vulnerable communities with soap, water, food and other essentials in a bid to arrest the spread of the disease especially in mining communities. Loraine Nyakuedzwa, the monitoring and evaluation officer for Caritas Harare said the organisation had trained health co-ordinators from 42 schools. “At district level, we have managed to assist with soap for handwashing, fuel for awareness campaigns in hotspots like the Mazowe River area where there is high activity and a high population due to illegal gold panning activities. “We have managed to train environment health technicians, village health workers and agriculture extension officers on COVID-19 awareness in the process. To match our project goals, we have done COVID-19 nutrition and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) campaigns,” she said. Nyakuedzwa said village health workers and Agritex officers were given masks, buckets with taps and hand sanitisers. “There is one school being supported that received 350 face masks for pupils and teachers. The school is being assisted with dry ration porridge which is going a long way as most income avenues have been closed,” Nyakuedzwa said. COVID-19 has affected livelihoods and lifestyles across the country with rural communities being the most affected as they have no access to basics needed in combating the spread of the disease.