My reaction; The COVID19 Awareness viral video in Hamar Weyne Fishmarket...

A video circulating of the negative reaction faced by a young brother who was raising awareness of Covid19 inside a fish market in Hamar Weyne, Mogadishu was painful to watch. I genuinely have to applaud his professionalism and the way he had gone about in raising the awareness dispute the unnecessary behaviour he had to endure.

I think the boo's and cheers inside the fish market should be an indicator to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Information on the need to gear up and raise the bar in the awareness campaign to the heart of the districts through local imams and to slow down on the resources spent on animated videos as they are not proving to be effective.

The reality is that we are a society with very firm religious beliefs and you cannot be blind to what is on the ground. If you ask the average Ali for example what had happened on any given event, his typical reply would be "it was meant to be." Firm and very fair answer with full conviction.

Take Farey Bajaaj (sometimes called Farta Haaji by others) as another example; Farey is a young energetic hustler with a big personality and lives in Mogadishu where he earns his living through the growing but "overly taxed" (in his own words) TukTuk service. He lost his finger at a early age in an accident and was nicknamed "Farey" (Missing finger) ever since.

One time while riding in his TukTuk, we were driving near Dekada Road and a white Corolla had driven past us in the opposite direction. The Corolla driver had 4 other passengers with him and all were wearing face masks.

"How many Faataha do you read a day while praying?" Farey asked me eagerly.

"17 (Rakat). If not more" I replied.

"Now that is the only protection you need my brother" he responded while throwing a thumbs up in one hand and holding the steering wheel with the other slightly causing a swerve in effort to avoid oncoming traffic.

I smiled back as I held my face-mask in my hand, ready at any notice.

This is the reality on the ground and it would be foolish to think otherwise.

All it would take for Farey to have full conviction and come on board is through the local mosque.

My point; the awareness will bear fruit once imams are in and bringing them on board may require sharing the data of the cases. This will give them the responsibility to report back what they had seen to their communities with clear convictions that this is real and not a "worldwide conspiracy" as Farey the Bajaaj driver puts it.

The worry should be that Farey is not alone; there are thousands others just like him and bringing them on board will need awareness not through animated videos for Twitter/donors but through his local mosque/district.

Mohamed Hassan - Editor
@MoHassan_ppg