Arigatou International-End Child Poverty Knowledge Centre has been supporting UNICEF-Sri Lanka and the Sarvodaya movement in preparing and disseminating Covid-19 safety messages around the country. The messages, mainly on nondiscrimination, prevention of stigma, violence against children and positive parenting have been disseminated in form of posters and social media messages to more than 30000 people including children across the country. The Knowledge Centre in partnership with Sarvodaya and UNICEF-Sri Lanka developed and disseminated COVID-19 risk communication materials in Sinhala, Tamil and English targeting specific faith communities and contributed to raise awareness on health measurements and child protection during the time of pandemic.
Having been a committee member of the United Nations Humanitarian Country Team (UN HCT) Protection Sector, the Knowledge Centre has been involved in supporting the development of the COVID-19 country response plan for the Protection Sector. The Knowledge Centre also provided support and leadership to take forward the Arigatou International Global campaign in response to COVID-19, through Covid-19 related posters, writing blogs and gathering the voices of Religious leaders, Children and heads of Faith Based Organizations. As a member of the steering committee of the UNICEF U-Report (chatbot to support COVID-19 Risk Communication and Community Engagement) committee, the Centre has been supporting the rollout of the UNICEF U-Report initiative in Sri Lanka. In all, the Knowledge Centre, Sarvodaya and UNICEF lauds the crucial role of religious leaders in times of crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic as they offer much needed spiritual, mental and material support.
