Eyewitness report: Mission in Kenya prepares for Covid-19

Team with samples of the soaps, gels and disinfectants they have manufactured

Teacher Lenny Jilo writes from the Missionary Community of St Paul the Apostle in Turkana in northwest Kenya: In the face of the Covid19 pandemic, improving hygiene is very important, especially handwashing with soap and using disinfecting gels. This practice of maintaining hygiene has for many years been paramount in Nariokotome Mission, where we have long manufactured liquid soap, bleach, soap bars and disinfectant; that we use in our health centres, nurseries, schools and workshops, to maintain hygiene in our development programs.

Educating and promoting our Turkana community, in the practice of good hygiene in these critical moments of the pandemic, and doing it ourselves showing example, in the situation caused by COVID 19 is very vital. However, it is difficult to have clean hands in a place with a shortage of soap and water and constant dust.

Given the shortage of water and other supplies, we thought it would be a good idea to start producing our own sanitizing gels, and explaining how they should be used as a preventive measure for daily use.

Thanks to the help and advice of Antonio Matji, a pharmacist who knows the mission and its needs, it has been possible to achieve it. We have started producing sanitizer in sufficient quantity to supply the Turkana population living in the mission, for our own consumption, and we are even producing to be able to distribute supplies to nearby populations through our mobile clinics.

LINKS

To support the clinic please visit: www.justgiving.com/campaign/covid19Turkana

Watch this video for an overview of the mission: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENpZM-KEqEM

Read Lenny Gilo's story here: www.indcatholicnews.com/news/36744