Online Training about Corona Virus, Prevention Methods and its Psychological Effects.

As part of the Human and Environmental Security in Iraq in Covid Time project, Waterkeepers Iraq conducted an online training for environmentalists and activists.

On the course of three days from 25th of February to 27th, two and half hours each at 5pm till 7:30pm, the online training was conducted focusing on three main topics which were COVID-19 itself, Prevention Methods and campaigning and also It’s Psychological effects.
 
The Participants were asked to fill a google form one week prior to the scheduled time, the forms gave info about their location, education and background. We chose activists and enthusiasts based on the filled forms and 20 participants were selected.

First day of the training we had Bnwar as a biologist at the beginning to introduce the course, and the program of the training and then explain Covid-19, what it is, how it became a pandemic, the possible sources and what we should do so that this won’t happen again considering wildlife-human conflict. On the second part of day 1, April Christine as a physiotherapist expert explained the multiple aspects of prevention methods, their importance and how we should continue with them as there are different variants of COVID-19 merging. Overall first was very informative and participants had time in breakout rooms to answer questions asked and were happy as we had a discussion session at the end to hear their opinions and feedback.

On day Second day, Sara Eleonora as Psychotherapist, was introduced and she started the session talking about Wellbeing and whats Wellbeing, later on followed by how Covid-19 has effected our Wellbeing and how we can face that and approach it. 

Third day, Nabil Musa as a Waterkeeper and environmentalist talked about how Covid-19 effected the environment in both negative and positive ways, how we can use this change to better understand the nature and ourselves, specially the need for campaigns and not just outside campaigns but also inside ourselves so we can adapt to the situations and better prepare and prevent anything similar to this pandemic in the future. 
Second part of third day, Hana Raza, a wildlife expert was invited to discuss the human-wildlife conflict.
And the final part of the day was for an open discussion between the participants and the experts to share ideas and brainstorm together which was very rich and fruitful.

We thank the experts and Ari Kareem for interpreting from English to Kurdish, and also special thanks to those attended the training. 
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This project is funded by FAI and implementing by Upp, Humat Dijlah, SAVI, And Waterkeepers.