Consulting the community on proposed interventions in Kenya
The Kenya team of Urban SHADE project is having community meetings explaining the findings, and talking about possible interventions.
The intervention proposed for all three communities– Tudor Moroto and Matopeni in Mombasa and Mibuyu Saba in Kilifi is co-designing training modules and protocols for health workers and community health workers with the health department on flood and extreme heat management.
One of the additional proposed interventions for Mombasa’s Tudor Moroto is the establishment of a community resilience hub which is intended to serve both as a community health facility, as well as a community centre. The proposition is that this hub can help increase access to healthcare during extreme weather events as well as become a hub for community meetings, support community activities and interventions and also serve as a rescue centre during disasters.
The Urban SHADE team had several meetings with the community members starting with the local administration and village elders in February to get their buy-in on the interventions and support in mobilizing and organizing the community meetings.
In the community meeting at Simitini village in Tudor Moroto, there was a discussion on the access road to the identified building for the resilience hub. The access road is currently narrow, and rudimentary. The access road to this building also becomes too muddy after the rains. The community members said that if they have the right material, such as cement, they can fortify the access road. They were unsure about involving the government as there were worries that the government could ask people to move out of their homes, without compensating them.
On developing modules for health workers to tackle health-related issues of flood and heat, the community members from all three settlements said that they would like community members to be also involved in the training workshops and other activites related to disaster management, and health-related interventions.
The Urban SHADE team will discuss this further in stakeholders meetings which are underway.
