A HELPLINE has been set up to help get vital Covid-19 messages out to Bradford's diverse communities.
It has been launched by the Race Equality Network (REN), an umbrella group which brings together Black, asian and minority ethnic (BAME) communities across the Bradford district.
It is currently working on a Covid-19 Prevention Project which began in September with funding from Bradford Council.
It aims to reduce the impact of Covid-19 on BAME and Central and Eastern European (CEE) communities living in the district and address health inequalities. Leading on the project are Project Manager, Humma Nizami and Project Capacity Builder, Hattie Charnley-Shaw.
REN has commissioned four ‘anchor’ organisations which have strong links to communities and existing relationships with other organisations.
They include Grange Interlink Community Centre, BEAP Community Partnership, Karmand Community Centre and Sangat Community Centre (Keighley). In addition to these four, REN has funded 22 smaller organisations to assist in Covid-19 prevention and dissemination of information across the district.
Its latest work is the launch of the community helpline, which spans five different organisations including BEAP Community Partnership, Muslim Women’s Council, Connecting Roma, Grange Interlink and New Libya Society, which collectively provide information and guidance on Covid-19 to BAME and CEE communities in different languages, including Bangla, Urdu, Punjabi, English, Roma, Slovakian, Czech, and Arabic.
Humma said: “BAME communities are two to three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than other members of the population so the funding we have received by Bradford Council to deliver this project will enable us to ensure BAME and CEE communities across the Bradford district feel they are supported to control COVID-19 and have improved access to information about the virus in a range of accessible formats.
"By setting up the Covid Helpline, we hope to break down further barriers to accessing information around Covid, especially for those people from BAME and CEE backgrounds who are most at risk but who are not literate or E-literate”
REN can be found on Facebook @raceequalitynetwork; Twitter: @network_race and Youtube: raceequalitynetwork
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