Community Resilience in COVID-19 Pandemic (CRCP) – IFMSA-Thailand

Name of the activity: Community Resilience in COVID-19 Pandemic (CRCP)

Country/NMO: IFMSA-Thailand

Program: Emergency, Disaster Risk & Humanitarian Action

Contact information: contact [email protected] to get in touch with the Activity Coordinator

Type of the activity: First-time Activity

Category: Third-party Activity

Focus area: Disaster resilience (including prevention, preparedness and response), Improvement of humanitarian initiatives, Access to care in disaster/emergency contexts, Populations in emergency, disaster and post-disaster settings

Sustainable Development Goals addressed: SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-Being), SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 13 (Climate Action)

Problem statement:

The COVID-19 pandemic has been affecting many aspects, especially the community infrastructure. According to the survey sample in Moo. 9 community, Thailand, we discovered that people are overly aware and cautious of COVID-19, terrified to contact each other. Primarily, the frontline workers. This leads to a non-unity community. Hence, we need an idea that sustainably and comprehensively develops communities. Building community resilience is one such idea since it helps them adapt to crises.

Target groups:

• General population
• People with disabilities
• Elderly people
• Incarcerated individuals

Beneficiaries:

• General population
• Other health professionals
• Children
• Youth
• Women
• People with disabilities
• Elderly people
• LGBTQIA+ community
• Incarcerated individuals

Objectives:

1. To identify a status of vulnerabilities regarding all nine elements of the Moo. 9, Klong 4 Subdistrict, Khlong Luang District, Pathum Thani Province, Thailand community based on the Community resilience model (Local knowledge, Community networks and relationships, Communication, Health, Governance/leadership, Resources, Economic investment, Preparedness, Mental outlook) using the CRP toolkit, a self-developed evaluation tool, by the end of June 2021. 

2.To identify a minimum of three potentials regarding all nine elements of the Moo. 9, Klong 4 Subdistrict, Khlong Luang District, Pathum Thani Province, Thailand community that help the community to overcome its vulnerabilities by the end of July 2021. 

3. To Design and implement an intervention model that is capable of making systematic changes to improve community resilience in the community. And we have to evaluate the success and effectiveness of this model in solving community problems directly by the end of November 2021.

Indicators of Success:

1.At least 3 most significant vulnerabilities of the assessed community identified via conducting surveys of at least 100 community members and at least 1 in-depth interview.

2. The cause of at least the three most significant vulnerabilities of the assessed community is matched with the intervention model, keywords from interviewing, mathematical indices. 
3. To see noticeable improvements (change in key issues, more positive keywords, etc.) over a period of at least two cycles of the Plan-Do-Check-Act methodology(PDCA) evaluation system by the end of November 2021. 
4. At least 100 community members state to have seen at least a 10% improvement in each element of their community‘s resilience status compared to pre-project assessments.

Methodology:

1. Form a team consisting of three members and two advisors.  
2. Develop the concept of Community Resilience by conducting literature reviews.
3. Develop the Community Resilience Project (CRP) evaluation toolkit, which can evaluate all of the nine elements by our team and two advisors.
4. Find and explore the status of resilience, as well as the vulnerabilities in the community by doing in-depth interviews and the use of the CRP toolkit.
5. Select the three most significant and relevant elements of the Community Resilience model by discussing with the community members, taking into consideration the mathematical indices.
6. Find the background of the problems by using the 5-Why (5Y) methodology.
7. Design the interventions together with the community, and finalize them.
8. Implementing interventions into the community and re-checking interventions every month.
9. Collecting post-intervention questionnaires, evaluating the success, and presenting the project to IFMSA-Thailand.

Plans for evaluation:

We intend to evaluate this project both qualitatively and quantitatively to know the changes within the nine elements of community resilience that occur within the community. 

Qualitatively, 1. We do the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) methodology, an iterative design and management method used for the control and continuous improvement by interviewing with community volunteers to know the changes that occur in the community and create a correlation model that link all the keywords indicated by the volunteers, resources, and infrastructures from every month and compare the changes. 

2. Photographs during the implementation of interventions in the community in order know the environmental changes that happen within the community throughout the project.

Quantitatively, we use the CRP toolkit, a visual rating scale questionnaire that we created with two advisors collected data from 106 people in the community and compared the changes with mathematical indices: mean, mode, median, and s.d.

External collaborations:

1. IFMSA-Thailand Bootcamp 2021 as a project consultant, fundraiser.
2. Thai Health Promotion Foundation as a fundraiser
3. Faculty of Medicine, Srinakharinwirot university as the seminar’s educator provider
4. 15 members of Moo 9 community volunteers as the interventions co-designers, data providers, and on-ground workers.
5. Community leader as the implementation of activities approver.
6. Community health center as a health-related data provider.