A “public-speaker car” broadcasting information about COVID-19 in Cay Bay.
PHILIPSBURG--Government’s Department of Communication DComm announced on Thursday that it has intensified its COVID-19 public-awareness campaign in St. Maarten districts.
“[A – Ed.] public-speaker car continues to drive through all districts, broadcasting in English, Spanish, French and Creole [about] COVID-19 preventive measures; the CPS [Collective Prevention Services] information hotline 914; social distancing messages; and about getting tested,” said DComm in a press release on Thursday. The same public-speaker car has also been seen broadcasting public-awareness messages in communities on the French side.
DComm Head Maurice Lake called this “a very effective way of getting the message out to the inner-district communities in the island and in their own language, especially to those who do not have a phone or [access to the] Internet.”
“Getting support from the informal community leaders of the Spanish and Haitian communities has been very positive and another effective way in reaching out to the people in those areas … They have a good relationship with their people. We have had the experience where somebody got sick, they called their informal leader and then they reached out to 914 or the Ambulance Department.
“The community councils in the various districts have also been very active. We have also been working closely with both presidents and informal leaders from the Haitian and Spanish communities on both sides of the island to get our COVID-19 preventive-measures message out.
“We also have provided multi-language flyers with preventative COVID-19 information to [these] communities, which was provided with the assistance of the TelEm Group of Companies and distributed by PSS [Postal Services St. Maarten] – our national postal service –, CPS volunteers, and the informal leaders.
“Multi-lingual public service announcements for the broadcast media were also developed and provided to various radio stations with the assistance of the Bureau Telecommunication and Post [BTP] … We have also been working with multi-lingual radio hosts from these communities … as another avenue to reach out.
“… We have very important messages to get across and we are using all mediums in all languages, both visual, word-of-mouth, flyers, SMS phone text messages, Facebook, WhatsApp messaging, the prime ministers’ national addresses … in order to get that message out to these communities,” said Lake on Thursday.
According to Lake, public service announcements in Creole, Spanish, French and English have been airing on government radio 107.9 FM since February. These have also been airing on other radio stations throughout the country.
Multi-language SMS text messages have also been sent out to TelEm and United Telecommunications Services (UTS) subscribers because “not everybody has Internet data on their phones,” said Lake.
