19 March. 2021
CYENS Centre of excellence (formerly known as RISE) has completed the project EduCovTracer (Education of Immigrants in the digital COVID-19 contact tracing tool of the Republic of Cyprus), funded by Youth Board of Cyprus and the Recover20 funding scheme. During the project 188 migrants were directly informed and educated on the CovTracer-EN tool through live face-to-face workshops.
CovTracer-EN, has been developed by the Centres of Excellence CYENS and KIOS, under the supervision of the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy (DMRID) in cooperation with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and the National eHealth Authority, as part of the State's effort to develop digital and innovative solutions against the pandemic.
CovTracer-EN is the official mobile app of the Government of Cyprus for contact tracing based on a mobile phone’s technology. The app aims to support the efforts of the Department of Epidemiology (DoE) of the Ministry of Health, Government of Cyprus to contain the spread of COVID-19 among the Cypriot community. Before the training sessions, the CovTracer-EN was translated to languages spoken by the majority of migrants (French, Arabic, Russian, Pakistani).
The restrictions due to the pandemics did not allow to reach the estimated number of 500 participants. However, it is estimated that at least 2,000 immigrants and non-immigrants were eventually informed, either through the live sessions, through social networks, or word of mouth by the seminar participants who acted as “ambassadors of CovTracer-EN” to their communities. Participating migrants originated from a range of countries: Syria, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine, Iran, Kurds, Colombia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia, Senega, Senegal.
During the project, CYENS also contacted representatives of communities (e.g. president of the Kurdish community, association of Palestinians, African organizations) to inform them about the tool, to achieve further dissemination. During the seminars, the need for our participants to become ambassadors of our application, and to spread it within their communities was made clear.
CYENS thanks the Youth Board of Cyprus for funding this project, as well as the MiHub NGO and its scientific manager Dr. Stefanos Spaneas for facilitating the translations, the training sessions and the workshops. CYENS especially thanks Mr. Panayiotis Hadjicostis and the volunteers from MiHub, all around Cyprus, who helped to achieve this ambitious effort via implementing the workshops in all the major cities in Cyprus.