Caring in crisis: The experiences of local religious leaders meeting community food needs in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To respond to the unintended consequences of prevention measures to reduce COVID-19 transmission, individuals and groups, including religious leaders, have collaborated to provide care to those negatively impacted by these measures. Amid these various efforts and interventions, there is a need to deepen our understanding of diverse expressions of care across various geographical and social contexts. To address this need, the objective of this study was to investigate how religious leaders in the Philippines practiced care for their communities by meeting emergency food needs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Guided by an ethics of care theoretical orientation, we conducted 25 remote semi-structured interviews with Filipino religious leaders who partnered with a Philippines-based non-governmental organization (NGO) to mobilize essential food aid to their local communities. Through defining the efforts and activities of these religious leaders as care work, we found that religious leader experiences revolved around navigating care responsibilities, caring alongside others, and engaging holistically with the care work. Additionally, we observed how contextual factors such as the humanitarian settings where religious leaders worked, the partnership with an NGO, and the positionality of local religious leaders within their communities, fundamentally shaped the care work. This study expands our understanding of how care is practiced and experienced and also brings greater visibility to the experiences and efforts of local religious leaders in responding to humanitarian emergencies.

Extending health systems resilience into communities: a qualitative study with community-based actors providing health services during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines.

BACKGROUND: Amidst ongoing calls for increased health systems resilience, gaps remain in our understanding of how health systems can reach further into communities to ensure resilient service delivery. Indeed, public health emergencies caused by infectious hazards reveal both the value and vulnerability of the workforce delivering health services in communities. This study explores ways in which a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the Philippines protected their frontline workforce during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Guided by a qualitative descriptive approach, 34 in-depth interviews were conducted with community-based health actors employed by the NGO between June 2020 and February 2021. Data analysis was guided by an iterative deductive and inductive approach. RESULTS: We identified four key activities that enabled the NGO and their staff to provide health and social services in communities in a safe and consistent manner as part of the organization's pandemic response. These include (1) ensuring adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and hygiene supplies; (2) providing contextualized and role-specific infection prevention and control (IPC) training; (3) ensuring access to testing for all staff; and (4) providing support during quarantine or isolation. CONCLUSION: Learning from the implementation of these activities offers a way forward toward health emergency preparedness and response that is crucially needed for NGOs to safely leverage their workforce during pandemics. Further, we describe how community-based health actors employed by NGOs can contribute to broader health systems resilience in the context of health emergency preparedness and response.

Navigating fear and care: The lived experiences of community-based health actors in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The activities of community-based health actors are widely recognized as critical to pandemic response; yet, there exists a lack of clarity concerning who is included in this ecosystem of actors and how these actors experience the complexity of delivering community-level care in the context of a public health emergency. The objectives of this study were (1) to characterize the lived experiences of community-based health actors during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines; and (2) to identify opportunities for further supporting these critical actors in the health workforce. Virtual semi-structured interviews were conducted (January-February 2021) with 28 workers employed by a Philippines-based non-governmental organization (NGO) to explore their lived experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Data were analyzed thematically using a hybrid inductive-deductive coding process, informed by Tronto's conceptualization of an ethic of care. Lived experiences among study participants were shaped by discourses of fear and care, and the interaction between these two affects. Participants reported everyday experiences of fear: NGO workers' fears of contracting and transmitting COVID-19 to others; perceived fear among community members where they worked; and fears around COVID-19 testing, recognizing the personal and social implications (e.g. stigma) of a positive test. Amid fear, participants had everyday experiences of care: care was a powerful motivator to continue their work; they felt supported by a caring organization that implemented safety protocols and provided material supports to those in quarantine; and they engaged in self-care practices. These findings contribute to understanding the ecosystem of actors involved in community-based health care and engagement efforts and the challenges they encounter in their work, particularly in a pandemic context. We highlight implications for civil society organizations charged with protecting the mental and physical well-being of their workers and describe how these actions can contribute to local health systems strengthening.

From the nice work to the hard work: “Troubling” community-based CareMongering during the COVID-19 pandemic

CareMongering is a virtually organized community-based response to COVID-19 formed in Canada in March 2020, in response to growing concerns about the pandemic. The goal of CareMongering is to care for community members, particularly those experiencing social exclusion, by organizing groups at a local level to support access to basic necessities, services, and resources (e.g., providing groceries and childcare to frontline workers). Following from feminist calls to ?trouble? care, we explore the uncomfortable relations that emerged while practicing CareMongering through a case study of a group in Ontario, Canada. Using semi-structured interviews with group members and organizers and ethnographic content analysis of Facebook group activity, we examine (1) difficult interactions on the group's public Facebook page, (2) strategies used to moderate the group, and (3) the affective and embodied experiences involved in virtually organizing CareMongering. We illustrate our findings through vignettes of one of the author's experiences as a CareMongering group member and composite narratives of social media interactions. We argue that by enacting critical community care, CareMongering groups have the potential to practice care that goes beyond simply caring for or about community needs to also care with communities. The hard work of critical community care involves an intersectional, reflexive, and relational approach that addresses underlying inequalities and promotes actions aimed toward making structural and collective change.

Humanitarian Food Security Interventions during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Review of Actions among Non-State Actors.

Widespread food insecurity has emerged as a global humanitarian crisis during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. In response, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and United Nations (UN) agencies have mobilized to address the food security needs among different populations. The objective of this review was to identify and describe food security interventions implemented by INGOs and UN agencies during the early stages of the pandemic. Using a rapid review methodology, we reviewed food security interventions implemented by five INGOs and three UN agencies between 31 December 2019 and 31 May 2020. Descriptive statistical and content analyses were used to explore the extent, range, and nature of these interventions. In total, 416 interventions were identified across 107 low- and middle-income countries. Non-state actors have developed new interventions to directly respond to the food security needs created by the pandemic. In addition, these humanitarian organizations have adapted (e.g., new public health protocols, use of technology) and reframed existing initiatives to position their efforts in the context of the pandemic. These findings provide a useful baseline to monitor how non-state actors, in addition to the food security interventions these organizations implement, continue to be influenced by the pandemic. In addition, these findings provide insights into the different ways in which INGOs and UN agencies mobilized resources during the early and uncertain stages of the pandemic.