In late March, Islamic Civic Society of America (ICSA), Open Path Resources (OPR), and Wellshare International joined forces to embark on a large-scale COVID-19 Community Engagement Campaign. The overall goal of the campaign was to break downcultural and language barriers to make this material accessible to tens of thousands of people.

As of June 30, 2020, the Progress Repot indicated tremendous reach and influence of resources circulated via email, social media, text messaging campaigns, and culturally specific mass media campaigns. Take a look at the numbers and see for yourself!

Objective 1: Produced videosproviding crucial information that immigrant communities need to stay healthy and to comply with State behavioral guidelines. This content was disseminated through short educational videos, an animated cartoon, a radio interview, and a program on St. Cloud Somali TV. Topics ranged from prevention, transmission, testing, and management of COVID-19, to resources for handling negative mental health and financial impacts of COVID.

Result: Total number reached with the above production as of June 30:29,387,523 viewers and listeners. This number has increased with the continued circulation of resources and materials.

Objective 2: Develop a Mobile Text Message Campaign to reach the Somali speakingpopulation through the use of evidence-based mobile phone health messaging model. Mobile messages contained public health information, awareness-raising campaign messages, Department of Health priority messages, and messages responding to emerging critical community needs.

Results: As of June 30, our phone database contains 700 cell phone numbers collected from the local Somali community. 700 recipients receive ongoing, daily text messages with timely COVID-19 information and resources from MN Department of Health. Total messages delivered is: 31,500 .

Objective 3: To develop, produce, and disseminate 24 easy-to-understand factsheets with simplified language and culturally appropriate graphic images. The factsheets are produced in 7 different languages and shared with the Spanish, Swahili, Somali, Arabic, Hmong, and Karen-speaking communities. Topics covered included myth busters, contact tracing, masks 101, COVID-19 and domestic violence, among many others.

Results: As of June 30, 2020, the count of total viewers via WellShare€™s website andsocial media is approximately: 19,264. This figure does not reflect the reach ofour many partner organizations who provide direct services to thousands of peopleeach week.

We hope you follow along as our efforts continue to expand in reach and impact with the communities we serve. Look for updated results of this campaign in our September Newsletter.