Global response efforts are underway for COVID-19 but the poor are disproportionately left behind. The First Mile, an initiative of WORK and Thread, supports waste collectors in Haiti, Honduras, and Taiwan. This network of thousands of women and men working hard to clean up the environment to make ends meet mostly lack an identity and access to safety net services. Your donation supports our comprehensive response of prevention, treatment, and access to medical care, and long-term support.
Our network of waste collectors are located in Haiti, Honduras, and Taiwan. While the response effort in Taiwan has been strong, our network needs PPE to continue their work. In Haiti, with about 700 tests administered, 1 hospital to treat COVID-19, and about 40 ventilators available for a population of 11M, we're gearing up for a real fight. The Honduras government has administered a full lock down. Collectors need information they can trust and a way to make ends meet and stay healthy.
Informal waste collection is a difficult task involving wading through landfills and public areas where waste is dumped by the population. Our project ensures education, training, and safety equipment are in place for collectors. For those unable to work and those who will lose work soon, support for essential items and safety supplies are key in helping our network stay healthy and endure this time. We've also spent years building trust that will lead to strong outcomes in emergency response.
Over 200,000 have fallen to COVID-19 globally and we don't need to add to the count. This is about supporting a community of heroes who have kept our environments as clean as possible despite the lack of infrastructure and indecent practices of waste disposal but are continuously left behind. We need to address their ability to stay healthy so they can return to their vital work when it's safe to do so. Doing so would maintain a difficult to replace essential service intact long-term.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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