When others panic during a time of crisis, Harar Hall finds a way to help.
When the COVID-19 pandemic came to Ottawa, Hall, a Carleton University masters of conflict student and outreach co-ordinator at the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG), wanted to support others as a means of coping.
Aiming to spread positivity, provide resources, and foster community, Hall created a public Facebook group named “COVID-19 Community Care Ottawa” on March 13—just two days after the Ottawa outbreak began.
Now, as of March 26, the group has almost 6,000 members.
“It got way bigger than I ever anticipated,” Hall said.
“When I get panicked sometimes, I’ll read a couple of posts on the group and it’s really beautiful to see people just helping and that being their natural instinct.” — Harar Hall, creator of the COVID-19 Community Care Ottawa page
“Sometimes people just don’t know what to do,” Hall said of her initial motivation to create the Facebook group.
“Instead of going internally, like stocking up supplies to feel better and have more control, what if we turned outwards and helped people within our community?”
Hall added the Facebook page has the potential to bring members together socially.
“Also, I just think it’s kind of nice to already have a community of folks in your city who are also feeling really lonely during self-isolation and quarantine,” Hall said. “To be a support for each other.”
When Carleton University announced it would be cancelling classes on March 13, Hall said she felt she needed to organize herself in a new way.
The Facebook group seemed like a natural extension of her past experiences and involvement with social advocacy organizations, Hall said.
“All my work has been focused on community outreach, so I think this is just a very natural manifestation of my panic response to sort of try to organize,” she said.
“For me, it was just the way to deal with existential panic like ‘let’s communicate and organize,’ because I think that’s how I navigate the world.” — Harar Hall, creator of the COVID-19 Community Care Ottawa page
The Facebook page offers members a place to spread positive news about COVID-19, the opportunity to share and deliver resources like food and cleaning supplies to those in need, as well as peer support video and phone calls where group members can vent and be social with one another.
“Humans are such social animals, this is not most of our ideal situations to be not close to people that we care about or to not go out and be around lots of people,” Hall said of the need for members to have personal interactions.
In addition to meeting new people from all over the city, Hall said one of the best parts of the page is that members are so willing to help one another.
“It’s all based on what people volunteer to do, which is quite nice because so many people are volunteering to do so much,” Hall said.
She said strangers’ generosity towards each other has been astounding. In particular, posts of families needing food, strangers needing toilet paper, and other resource posts have been responded to within five minutes of being posted.
“It’s actually a really amazing example of very, very different people coming together to help.” — Harar Hall, creator of the COVID-19 Community Care Ottawa page
Although selfishness may be the easier response to COVID-19, Hall said she urges people to choose kindness.
“It’s easy when the crisis prescribes self-isolation to turn more inward, to become more selfish, to become more suspicious and care less about people around you,” Hall said.
“I would like this group to symbolize the other way that we can deal with each other—which is to reach out to others,” she said. “To transfer the opportunities we have to other people who don’t have those opportunities.”
“That’s how we get better again,” Hall added. “It’s by making sure that the community is taking care.”
Featured image by Jillian Piper.
