COVID-19: MhEST Provides Support to Street-Connected Children Households

Mlambe Health and Social Trust (MhEST) is conducting assessments of street-connected children households in Zomba as COVID-19 continues to plague the country.

Ministry of Health COVID-19 Daily Info Update figures released on Sunday, 26 April 2020 pegged total confirmed cases in Malawi at 3,664 leading to 99 total deaths.

Ministry of Health COVID-19 Daily Info Update

MhEST in April counseled both parents and their children to stay at home for the foreseeable future and follow preventative measures to reduce the likelihood of being infected with the Coronavirus.

In the interim, MhEST has been providing psycho-social, nutritional and educational support to the households to ease the strain caused by the pandemic.

A MhEST Social Worker conducts a home school lesson

MhEST Senior Social Worker Louis Malajira said: “We made sure that all the children are out of the streets and are at home. Now what we’re doing is making follow up visits just to encourage these children, providing counseling and engaging them academically.

“So we’re providing school lessons as one of the activities during these home visits. You know it’s been a long time since these children attended normal classes, so we believe these lessons will help them remain engaged academically.”

Bukani (Right) counsels one of the street-connected children

MhEST Psychiatric Nurse Doreen Bukani added: “another purpose of these home visits is to give emotional support to the parents or guardians and the children we repatriated to their households.

“First of all we approach and ask the parents how they have been dealing with the (COVID-19) situation. Then we talk to the children and encourage as well as assure them that they won’t be stuck at home forever.

“We’re also supplying them with basic needs like maize flour for porridge and soap so that whatever they were used to having at the MhEST Resource Center, they can continue to have at home like washing their clothes and bathing as well as emollients for their bodies.”

A Social Worker engages one of the children in a home school lesson