COMPAS has been playing a vital role in supporting vulnerable communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. We have been offering food and hygienic equipment during both lockdowns and for the past 8 months, we have been offering LFT testing, linked to the NHS track & trace service. On average, we have conducted 10 tests every week.  

Our experience and community knowledge has also been sought by other districts across the UK. We have been assisting communities in Kent area, Cardiff, Sheffield and other areas.

If you can’t find your answer, you can contact us on e-mail address contact@compas.org.uk or via FB (Compas Charity).

Improving Covid-19 vaccine uptake

COMPAS Charity has been commission by the Peterborough City Council to support the national Covid-19 vaccination campaign by increasing awareness and understanding amongst marginalised community members. A team of 4 trained community champions engage in the following areas:

• Translation of relevant material into various languages (Romanian, Czech / Slovak, Latvian, Lithuanian etc)
• Awareness raising about vaccination on social media, media campaign, targeted campaign
• Pop up vaccination advice centres in the areas with the lowest uptake
• Engagement with pupils at schools
• Creating a short videos with prominent members of communities talking about the vaccination
• Webinars and live streams
• Identification of fake news sources and tackling such news
• Management of the project by overviewing the current trends, the work of other stakeholders and engagement with NHS

ENGAGEMENT IN KENT

In April 2021, COMPAS had been successful in securing funding from Kent CCG to conduct research within the Roma communities to establish the best ways for NHS and the Council to engage with the communities and to promote vaccination against Covid-19.

COMPAS conducted over 80 semi-structured interviews in Gravesend, Chatham, Margate, Dover and Folkestone; and at the end produced a comprehensive report outlining the main reasons for low vaccination uptake, for sources of fake news and the key influencers.

The research was led by Romani Studies Expert Michal Mizigar and researcher Denisa Dufkova.

INCREASING VACCINATION UPTAKE

Due to various factors, including fake news, fear of potential health problems and conspiracy theories, the vaccination uptake amongst Roma has been very low on national level.

COMPAS has played vital role in increasing the vaccination uptake by creating a pool of ambassadors and engaging with local and national media.

Paul Bristow MP participated in a debate in the House of Commons entitled “Covid-19: Community response. During his speech, Mr Bristow MP said:

“It is a special place, Peterborough, with the Sikh community, the Hindu community, the Nepalese community, five big mosques, churches across the city, the East Timorese community and Petr Torak from Compas, which provides support to the Czech, Slovak and Roma communities.”

AWARENESS RAISING

The rules on travelling abroad are frequently changing and each country is adopting their own rules. Therefore we recommend to check with your embassy or with the FCO (https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice) to get the most up to date information.

If you want to check how many people have been confirmed with COVID-19 in your area, click HERE. When the page opens, scroll down and type your postcode into the search box.

To check the total number of infected people and victims of COVID 19 worldwide, click HERE

An amazing publication for children with easy explanation of Coronavirus can be downloaded bellow.

To entertain our little-ones during this unprecedented times, here are some resources to keep them entertained. All the pictures are an art work of Morgan Fitzsimons. You can download the pictures and print them out for your children.

If your children are not into drawing, you can make with them their own bracelet. Donna Senneck will show you how to do it in few easy steps. If you require beads, just let us know and we will try to resource it.