UNESCO learning cities' responses to COVID-19
The UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) called on its network of 229 UNESCO learning cities to provide insights into their particular handling of the situation. During a UIL webinar series in 2020, they jointly developed strategies and exchanged information about good practices to ensure that learning did not stop.
In our new publication Snapshots of learning cities’ responses to COVID-19, we showcase local responses to COVID-19. The Chilean city of Santiago provided one of them.
Santiago, Chile
Project Hope
Its aim is to improve COVID-19 responses in vulnerable areas across four municipalities: Puente Alto and La Pintana (both low-income municipalities in Santiago), and Antofagasta and Pozo Almonte in northern Chile.
Project objectives
- increase access to healthcare for people with COVID-19 symptoms
- increase polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing for COVID-19 to 2,000 tests per day
- improve follow-up of positive patients and their contacts.
Organizing the project
- project design and organization
- identifying resources for proposed strategies
- defining project work areas using a matrix organizational structure.
This structure established the three areas of work (based on three defined objectives and the territories where the strategies would be carried out) and project teams, grouped according to:
- project areas
- team members’ (i.e. the faculty, undergraduates and graduate students of UC) academic experience
- and stakeholders with experience in project management and other areas.
Challenges: Amending plans and adapting to local realities
Generating alliances and building trust with local health services so that they accepted proposals and incorporated them into localized pandemic plans was also a challenge, as was adapting the project strategies to serve local realities in four partner municipalities, which required great effort from participating teams.
Challenges: PCR testing supplies and remote work
The need for urgent pandemic-specific responses and having to work almost 100 percent remotely (hundreds of hours of teleconferencing) were also reported as major challenges.
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UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities
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