Unanticipated delays: Adapting to the global pandemic

Selam (hello) from California! A lot is happened since our last Ethiopia update! When we last wrote, we had just finished data collection at our urban location, Axum, despite a series of delays caused by everything from locust infestations to flooding.

Our next step was to replicate the data collection process in our rural location. With the help of our wonderful partners, we selected a location, gained the buy-in and support of the local government, the secondary schools and the youth centers, and hired a research assistant. With everyone on board, the site nearly planned itself!  Things were moving along nicely…until COVID-19 came along.

Over the years, we thought that we had encountered every type of obstacle to data collection: unannounced local holidays, locusts, participants with unpaid school fees, delays in research approvals, and the list goes on. However, a global pandemic was not on our radar.  

At first the impact on our activities was minimal.  Ethiopia began taking appropriate precautions early in the New Year (I was screened at the airport for COVID-19 in early February), and it seemed the continent was largely avoiding the alarming global outbreak. Unfortunately, a couple of days after we had organized our second site, in the rural south, the government announced the first confirmed COVID-19 case in Ethiopia. To say that things changed quickly would be an understatement.

Mitigation efforts were rapidly put into place and we decided to delay starting up data collection by one week to gauge the country’s response before continuing. Like other neighboring countries, we knew it was likely that the schools would be closed as additional cases were confirmed.  The next day, they were.

A few days later, faced with the reality of closing borders and cancelled flights, I flew home to California to wait out the crisis.  We are of course disappointed to have to postpone our second site data collection, but take comfort in knowing that Ethiopia is prioritizing the safety and health of their population. We continue to monitor the situation and are counting the days until we can resume with our amazing team in Ethiopia.

In the meantime, we are working with our partners to get our books into the hands of as many girls and boys as possible in the countries where they have already been published.

Everyone on the G&K team wishes all of our wonderful stakeholders, partners, colleagues, and friends health, safety, and sanity during this time!

Views from our rural data collection site