As COVID-19 began rapidly spreading around the world this month, AMEL sprang into action. The spread of the virus and the efforts to contain it disproportionately impact those most vulnerable wherever they are in the world. Here at AMEL, we are uniquely positioned to assist at-risk populations in Africa and the Middle East, where millions already live in precarious conditions, especially refugees/internally displaced persons (IDPs). For too many across the region, overcrowding and lack of basic sanitation and healthcare create life-threatening conditions, even in non-pandemic times. At the same time, the already challenging landscape for human rights and democratic development in the region becomes significantly more threatening in times of public emergencies, when governments may seize the crisis as a pretext for depriving citizens of basic rights.

AMEL is thus mobilizing its ecosystem of civic activists and respected young leaders across Africa and the Middle East to rise to these challenges. AMEL activists are already active in assisting and advocating for vulnerable populations in their communities and have local and national networks of young people that can translate and disseminate accurate information about COVID-19 in local languages. These young leaders are also uniquely positioned to lead the charge against disinformation and influence their peers to stem the tide of misinformation spreading rampantly on social media,messaging services and in communities. To this end, AMEL is providing young leaders in 32 countries across Africa and the Middle East with materials and training to empower them to deliver vetted critical information, such as that produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the African Center for Disease Control, to tens of thousands in their communities and beyond. Through this process, additional educational approaches, material, translations and insights will be collected and developed to expand and improve efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 across the region and the world.

Building on this, AMEL is leveraging social media to reach millions of people across Africa and the Middle East with educational content on COVID-19 in local languages.Through targeted ad campaigns on Facebook during just the week of March 16th, AMEL reached more than 1 million individuals across Africa, with localized content in Arabic, Amharic, French and English. The reach is continually climbing as the content reaches additional people each and every day, but there is an urgent need to deploy additional content in more languages and to more critical locations. AMEL is working to mobilize support to expand the initiative to:

• Mobilize Thousands of Activists in the AMEL ecosystem to counteract misinformation, develop localized content on COVID-19 based on vetted sources such as the WHO and the Africa Center for Disease Control, and spread it widely through their communities and countries;

• Educate 100 Million across Africa and the Middle East through targeted advertisements promoting accurate information on COVID-19, how to prevent its spread, and health best practices in localized languages;

• Provide an Online Community for our activists and global supporters to engage in sharing of resources and best practices, online discussions and webinars featuring experts and young leaders in affected countries, and more.

With your help we can reach a critical mass and help prevent catastrophic spread of the virus across Africa and the Middle East. Please donate what you can to support these unexpected yet critical activities to deliver accurate COVID-19 in local languages to vulnerable people across the region, especially those living in crowded slums and refugee/IDP camps.

We will also endeavor to spread rays of hope from across the region, highlighting some of the countless examples of innovative responses and communities coming together across Africa and the Middle East to confront this pandemic and the vulnerabilities it has exacerbated. The COVID-19 pandemic is testing the resilience of us all, but coming up through the cracks of the hardship and tragedy weighing upon us, there are sprouts of humanity and interconnectedness reaching up towards the sunlight.