Health education for refugees in Malaysia
About
Dr. Hayati Seda is a public health officer for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) based in Malaysia. She sees a lot of refugees who represent various ethnic groups from Myanmar. They speak different languages and dialects, which makes health education challenging.
The Challenge
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a lot of health information to communicate and guidelines were changing quickly. Dr. Seda’s team only had four people, and they were responsible for the public health response for refugees in the entire country. They did not have the capacity to create health education materials in all the languages they needed.
Dr. Seda had looked for multilingual libraries in the past, but they usually did not have the languages she needed. This time, a colleague told her about MHI.
A discovery
Dr. Seda went to the MHI website and found posters in Burmese, Karen, and Karenni. She was impressed that these resources were not only expertly translated, but also easily customizable.
Dr. Seda sent the resources to community leaders who were able to customize them, saving Dr. Seda time while giving communities decision-making power over what was sent out. The leaders sent the posters to their extensive WhatsApp groups and posted them on Facebook.
It worked so well, that Dr. Seda sent the resources to her colleagues and refugee-serving organizations across the country. Dr. Seda believes these materials contributed to the high vaccination rate among refugees in Malaysia; 96% got two doses of the vaccine.
MHI’s Health Education Empowers Communities
Without MHI’s resources, refugee communities in Malaysia would have had to design and translate materials from scratch. MHI materials allowed for quick dissemination of information about COVID-19 vaccines, which supported their ability to make informed decisions about their health. Many refugees may have declined the vaccine, putting their lives at risk. Using MHI’s resources helped UNHCR empower communities while relieving their staff of additional duties during a chaotic time.
Note: Some personal details have been changed in this story.