The below responses are condensed from the November 2020 survey.
How is everyone?
Since the pandemic started to reach the global level in March 2020, most IPEN Participating Organizations (POs) continue to work from home.
Early in the year there was a lot of stress, concern, and fear which still has continued, but POs have adapted and are overall doing well, and doing their best to keep safe. There are challenges linked to activities needing to be cut, loss of donor funding, mobility/curfews, connectivity, working from home, and heavier workloads.
IPEN’s response from the first COVID-19 Survey:
- Messages and updates from the IPEN Co-Chairs.
- IPEN has added a COVID-19 and toxic substances webpage: https://ipen.org/site/covid-19-and-chemicals
- All IPEN regional hubs have their own zoom platform to host meetings/webinars
- Under IPEN’s Toxics-Free SDGs Framework, two project types were added, COVID-19 Chemicals and Waste, and COVID-19 Industry Rollbacks.
Online connection:
Generally, most POs have not had many issues, but some POs have had trouble with increasingly unstable internet connection issues, electricity outages, or high internet data costs.
Most POs confirmed that online events are very useful. One of their advantages is that they are time and cost effective, but they can also be exhausting, overlapping, with personal networking & discussions missing.
Mobility:
There are some mobility issues with some travel restrictions, but they have lessened over the months. Many POs, yet not all, have resumed field activities.
Organization and operation:
Every organization has been affected in some way. Fundraising and flow of funds have been impacted, resulting in budget deficits and unable to accomplish some of the planned activities.
It has become difficult to stay in touch with local communities at remote areas and working with governments has become much slower.
Additionally, Almost all POs have expanded their operations to cover COVID-19 in some way, from awareness raising to reducing the spread of COVID-19, to covering the effects of chemicals and waste due to COVID-19.
Ideas and needs:
The main needs expressed by POs is the need for capacity building, funding support, or helping build their capacity on fundraising. Additional ideas included support for extracurricular activities, such as classes in English or other languages. Lastly, it was mentioned that funds for technological support for POs would be beneficial.
Work has been steered to address COVID-19 from working in the communities to raise awareness on health concerns, addressing plastic waste issues that have risen from the pandemic, and touching more on COVID-19 Chemicals and waste.
Health, Wellness & Mindfulness:
Below is the feedback from the November survey when asking what health and wellness tools POs would like to have more access to:
POs had the option to choose as many of the below options, some “other” input is included in the ideas and needs above.
Next Steps:
- IPEN Co-Chairs to develop a concept to mobilize resources to address priority needs in promoting IPEN POs health, wellness, and mindfulness.
- IPEN to continue to raise resources for IPEN Toxics-Free SDGs COVID-19 Chemicals and Waste Projects.
- Increase technological capacity for IPEN Hubs and POs.