Media Release
Mangaluru, Apr 3: National Service Scheme, programme coordinator, programme officers Yenepoya (Deemed to be University) underwent online Zoom training programme on 'Risk Communication' for COVID-19 among communities conducted on March 31 by the UNICEF in association with NSS Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports Government of Karnataka. Around 10 NSS programme officers of the Yenepoya University attended the training. As on 11 March, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak was declared as a pandemic and reiterated the call for countries to take immediate actions and scale up the response to treat, detect and reduce transmission to save people’s lives.
National Service Scheme, Government of Karnataka has taken steps to spread awareness among 4000 programme officers of Karnataka through online Zoom app. Through this initiative, it is requested to all the programme officers of Karnataka to transform this message to the NSS volunteers of Karnataka. Yenepoya University NSS programme officers have started spreading awareness through PPT presentations on awareness to all the NSS volunteers. Dr Gannanath Yekkar state officer NSS Cell, Youth Empowerment and Sports Government of Karnataka has stated that amid a disaster NSS can take a major role and spread awareness among the community.
NSS plays an exceptional role in an emergency like the current crisis of COVID-19, NSS has a huge presence of enthusiastic coordinator, officers and volunteers all over Karnataka who can make a difference in the crisis and help prevent the spread in the communities.
UNICEF team also highlighted in their presentation about the key facts about COVID-19, mode of transmission, why is it dangerous, key behaviour for prevention from the virus, behaviour for suspected or confirmed cases, hand hygiene, prevention respiratory hygiene, prevention social distancing, prevention high-risk group. They also stressed upon the role of NSS as to share, correct the factual information on COVID-19, promote the key behaviour to be practised by community members to spread the virus, support local authorities in preparedness for containment and support in surveillance and report suspected cases, promote service available for women and children, minimize panic and responsible behaviour.
The action plan given to all the programme officers is as follows - Trained NSS programme officers must conduct online training for NSS Volunteers through video handouts and share a reliable source of information on COVID-19. The session ended with the panel discussion with all the members of the UNICEF Kulandairaj, Manoj and other programme officers had a fruitful discussion on the topic COVID-19 preparedness in Karnataka.