Sierra Leone faces coronavirus as rainy season hits – local disaster planning will be key

Lee Miles, Bournemouth University

The government of Sierra Leone called a state of emergency on March 25, seven days before the first case of COVID-19 was even confirmed. The virus has spread steadily since then, with 1,272 cases confirmed and 51 deaths as of June 19.

At the same time, the country has begun the rapid countdown to the full onset of the annual rainy season, which raises challenges of its own, especially for the flood-prone local communities in the capital, Freetown. In mid-2019, Freetown and other major Sierra Leonean cities were engulfed in major flooding. Before this, in 2017, more than 1,000 people died in major mudslides in the capital.

This year, there has been recognition that more forthright action is required. My colleagues and I are currently working with Sierra Leone’s Department of Disaster Management and Freetown City Council to create disaster preparedness guides for district councillors, disaster managers and local volunteers. The goal is to have several guides and handbooks available by July 2020 across four major cities of Sierra Leone to improve scenario planning if multiple disasters happen at once.

In recent years, there has been a strong focus among those who plan for disasters to build more robust forms of resilience in local communities. Not least in Sierra Leone, where – like most of Africa – disaster management relies heavily on local volunteers and traditional forms of community leadership.

Across Africa, there are many poverty-stricken slums and informal settlements. These are vulnerable to natural hazards such as flooding, suffer from overcrowding, and often lack running water and electricity.

As past experiences of Ebola in west Africa demonstrated, it’s also important to focus on the local communities. Poor handling of pandemics and other natural disasters by national governments and international institutions can lead to resistance, inertia and non-compliance among communities and influential community leaders. In the case of the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak, there were many instances where local communities did not trust or were slow to heed advice that ultimately delayed responses to the disease and ended up costing further lives.

Today, local communities in Sierra Leone could be confronted with a perfect storm when it comes to preparing for future disasters and events. Better disaster management is an imperative, particularly in the face of three inter-linked challenges.

Coronavirus transmission

First, there is the impact of COVID-19. Community transmission is becoming a stark reality. The situation in both Sierra Leone and elsewhere in Africa remains highly challenging given the fragile state of many African health services and the limitation of bringing external humanitarian assistance on the ground during the crisis. It’s possible that overcrowded urban communities in some parts of Africa will become sources of future COVID-19 outbreaks and even be an endemic source of reoccurring COVID-19 incidents in the future.

Current COVID-19 prevention tools, such as social distancing and the prevention of mass gatherings to reduce the spread of the disease, are highly challenging to administer in such areas. In many ways, the local communities in Sierra Leone – and Africa more widely – often do the best they can with what is available. Yet, the reality is that COVID-19 is likely to have an impact on the local communities.

Climate threat

Second, the practical, discernible impacts of climate change mean that many local communities are already facing worsening dry seasons with increased fires and droughts, followed by more unpredictable and erratic rainy seasons. Cities in west Africa, such as Accra in Ghana or Freetown in Sierra Leone, or central African cities such as Yaounde in Cameroon, now endure almost annual experiences of flash flooding and landslides that threaten to overwhelm poverty-stricken communities.

There is a growing paradox of frequency here. Local disaster managers and volunteers must meet public expectations to handle ever more frequent disaster. But they also recognise there is very little real time to build this local knowledge and review capacity before the onset of the next deluge, flood or fire.

Overlapping disasters

Third, local communities in Africa are increasingly aware that they also face multiple hazards that are very likely to overlap over the rest of 2020.

There will be major difficulties in delivering effective responses to flood and pandemics such as COVID-19 simultaneously. The standard response to flooding in Freetown is to move those affected to the safety of a large stadium or hall or school, placing them out of harm’s way in often large, robust locations. Yet this poses challenges for carrying out measures needed to contain COVID-19, such as avoiding large gatherings or social distancing.

Local communities need to think more deeply through how they plan for these combinations of possible disasters to save lives in the future. And yet, as my own research is finding, this raises a very serious challenge in that the local areas often lack even the most basic and accessible documentation, guidance and training in risk assessment and disaster management plans.

It’s often said that all disasters are local. The rest of 2020 is likely to prove this point more than ever for resource scarce, often poverty-stricken local communities in Africa. There is an urgent need here that must be addressed as quickly as possible.

Lee Miles, Professor of Crisis & Disaster Management, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Beth Clarkson, University of Portsmouth; Alex Culvin, Durham University; Keith Parry, Bournemouth University, and Stacey Pope, Durham University

Women’s football has made great strides in recent years. Attendances at the women’s FA Cup final continue to set new records. One survey suggested that one-third of adults are interested in the women’s game and 69% of those believe it deserves the same profile as men’s football.

However, the coronavirus pandemic has left the game in a precarious position. Although the suspension of elite football in England was initially applied evenly to both men’s and women’s competitions, there will be deeper and more far-reaching consequences for the women’s game.

The Football Association’s (FA) 2017 Game Plan for Growth, which included doubling the number of women and girls taking part in football by 2020 and improving commercial prospects, has largely been left unfulfilled. Such promises of equality (football for all) by the FA are starting to sound hollow. The Women’s Super League (WSL) and Championship seasons have now been cancelled. In contrast, plans to resume the men’s Premier League and Championship advance at pace.

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There are plenty of female superstars in football, but very few women coaches – here’s why

In our recently published research – the first academic study on this topic – we have highlighted why the pandemic is impacting men’s and women’s football differently.

Significant challenges

Prior to the pandemic, elite women’s football was already facing poor pitches, lower wages and prize money and conditions far behind men’s clubs. The biggest challenge for women’s football is that elite women’s teams rely on sponsorship for income. For example, 80% of Manchester City Women’s turnover is from commercial activity, most of which is sponsorship.

Women’s sport is also underfunded when compared to men’s in terms of things like marketing and prize money – see the tweet below. COVID-19 is also likely to hit many businesses’ profits hard, leaving companies who previously wanted to invest in women’s football unable to. If this causes the pool of sponsors to shrink – a pool that is already small – the future of women’s football will be under financial threat.

At the same time, financial strain on men’s football means women’s football could be one of the casualties. The majority of elite women’s teams are secondary sides under the umbrella of the professional men’s club. There are numerous examples in recent history where relegation or financial hardship for the men’s club has resulted in cutting ties with the women’s team.

For example, when the men’s club withdrew their financial support in 2017, Notts County women’s club collapsed the day before the new season, leaving their players jobless and, in some cases, homeless. When men’s teams cut their ties like this, women’s teams can be left with no choice but to fold.

Finally, elite women’s football is partially funded by the FA. The association has put significant investment into the women’s sport since professionalisation occurred in 2018, but historically, women’s football has been undervalued by the FA. It banned women’s matches from the grounds of FA-affiliated clubs between 1921 and 1971. And during earlier periods of financial insecurity, clubs and the FA cut investment to the women’s game.

Worryingly, the governing body has predicted a loss in excess of £100 million as a consequence of COVID-19. Grassroots and women’s football are not areas likely to be axed, but at present, there is no clear message that women’s football will continue to be invested in.

Steps to save the game?

Women’s football has gone through tough times before. It is resilient. So, COVID-19 may not be a fatal blow. However, swift and decisive action is needed to protect the recent momentum and growth of women’s football in England. Our recommendations are:

1) Clubs must shift their perspective so that women’s football is viewed as a core business and not as a goodwill gesture to the community.

2) Clubs should be entrepreneurial and innovative in their approaches to generating revenue for the women’s game, such as crowdfunding.

3) Women footballers are often on short-term contracts and juggle other jobs and family responsibilities alongside football careers. Issues surrounding wellbeing might be felt more acutely in women’s football. Clubs must work to actively support players.

4) The 12-month delay to the Women’s European Championship, now due to be held in England in 2022, should be seen as an opportunity. Leveraging mainstream interest in the Men’s 2022 FIFA World Cup, a “festival of football” could be created to attract fan interest in the women’s game.

5) When the game restarts, women’s football supporters must remain faithful in their support of the game. Visible advocates will show the governing body and clubs that there is a sustained demand for women’s football.

Read more:
Sing when you’re women: why it’s time to take female sports fans seriously

If we are to continue advancing a “new age” of women’s football, it is important that the women’s game is part of the conversation about football’s return. Without a clearly communicated strategy for the women’s game, the future of clubs and players’ health and wellbeing remain at risk.

Beth Clarkson, Senior Lecturer in Sports Management, University of Portsmouth; Alex Culvin, Postdoctoral Researcher in Professional Women’s Football, Durham University; Keith Parry, Deputy Head Of Department in Department of Sport & Events Management, Bournemouth University, and Stacey Pope, Associate Professor in the Sociology of Sport, Durham University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Children and parents have struggled to adjust to homeschooling. Now, some have to cope with returning to schools which will seem very different to those they left at the beginning of lockdown. One group of children, though, are facing challenges beyond those experienced by the majority.

Children with special educational needs (SEN) make up around 15% of all pupils in mainstream education. Developmental dyslexia is the most common condition in this group, estimated to affect between 10%-16% of the UK population. Autism is much rarer, affecting about 1.1%.

Our research suggests that children with these conditions might find it especially difficult to adapt to changes in their education. We need to recognise the extra challenges homeschooling and online learning have posed for many children – and take this into account as schools reopen.

Extra challenges

Many people think of dyslexia as a language disorder, but it also affects the memory and people’s ability to verbalise ideas and to pay attention. Even in the best of learning environments, struggles in school are likely to lead to low self-esteem for dyslexic children.

These difficulties are also experienced by autistic children, who may perceive the sensory world differently. Sounds can be magnified, for example, making it hard for a child working at the kitchen table to drag their attention away from the ticking of a clock or the dripping of a tap. Their experience of “not fitting in” also affects their self-esteem.

Another aspect of autism is concrete, black and white thinking. Some autistic children struggle with homework because they think school is for work and home is for play. Routine and predictability is crucial for these children. The move to home education has been another change for them in a sea of turmoil caused by the pandemic.

In school, autistic and dyslexic children would often have specialist support in place to help them with these problems. Without this kind of support, problems with attention and self-esteem may make learning at home very difficult.

It’s also important to recognise that dyslexia and autism are often inherited. Educational and emotional support at home may be limited, further disadvantaging the child and reinforcing the parent’s own potential sense of inadequacy. Children with SEN are also more likely to come from poorer families, an additional layer of inequality.

Positive impacts

Recent research has found that while many children with SEN (and their parents) are indeed more anxious and sad than usual, some families actually report minimal or even positive impacts of distance learning under lockdown. For some children, lockdown is a respite. For dyslexic children, it means they are not the child who is taken out of typical lessons to catch up on other work.

For autistic children, it may be an escape from the bullying which is tragically endemic in this group. Many autistic children, including those with a type of autism called pathological demand avoidance, are simply too anxious to attend school regularly.

Remote online education may offer children a greater opportunity for personalised learning at their own pace. For these reasons, many parents of SEN children choose to homeschool their children even under normal circumstances. They argue that home-schooling allows teaching to be built upon the child’s interests, while removing them from rigid standardised testing which is focused on the majority of learners and may set children with conditions like autism or dyslexia up to fail.

Back to school

As schools begin to reopen, advice is already emerging around how best to protect and support children. It’s important to make children feel safe and in control as we emerge from the coronavirus pandemic.

Experts suggest that emotional and social development should take precedence over school work. Some children may need special help with this. Autistic children, for instance, may need to be explicitly taught how to play appropriately, and may need adult assistance to make friends.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, teachers were advised to set up small circles of friends for vulnerable children. As such, the current advice, which recommends that children should stay in small groups, may be well suited to those with special educational needs. However, teachers will also need to actively adopt other strategies to foster social bonds between the child and their peers.

As always, it will be important for parents and teachers to collaborate closely to ensure as much consistency as possible. There are things that teachers and parents can do to help children deal with difficult emotions. Children might also be dealing with bereavement and new financial insecurity at home. The involvement of other child specialists, like psychologists and social workers, might therefore be beneficial.

To help build a sense of control, we need to do more to help children with special educational needs succeed in school, respecting their own pace and learning styles. As this situation evolves, we must be mindful of its impact on the already entrenched inequality that hampers these learners. However, the situation also forces us to come face-to-face with the cracks in our previous systems and come up with new ways of doing things which might, in the long term, reap surprising benefits.

Julie Kirkby, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Bournemouth University and Rachel Moseley, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Bournemouth University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.