Please stay at homes to keep yourselves safe! Covid-19 confirmed cases are surging by hundreds over cases everyday in Indonesia and it has the highest death rate in Asia outside China.
As you and i know, this pandemic is even harder to control if the people cannot abide the lockdown rules and still hanging around.
In order to urge people staying at home, a young team of volunteers in Kepuh village, Indonesia, decided to coordinate with the local police to dress up like a “Ghosts” and patrol on the streets at nights.
“We wanted to be different and create a deterrent effect because ‘pocong’ are spooky and scary,” said the head of the youth group who volunteered to take this actions.
‘Pocong’ is known as shroud ghost. It is an Indonesian and Malaysian ghost that is said to be the soul of a dead person trapped in its shroud and represent the trapped souls of the dead.
“The pocong is not to scare residents; instead, we want to educate residents on the fact that coronavirus causes death. It is a shock therapy, as people usually pay more attention to anything related to death,” Kepuh villager, Anjar Panca said.
“Residents still lack awareness about how to curb the spread of Covid-19 disease. They want to live like normal so it is very difficult for them to follow the instruction to stay at home.” said one of the villager.
After the organisers change their tactics by launching surprise ‘pocong’ patrols. And surprisingly, it seemed works! The villagers are scared and ran off when the ghosts appeared without notice.
One of the villager said, “Since the ‘pocong’ appeared, parents and children have not left their homes. And people will not gather or stay on the streets after evening prayers, ”
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Source: Reuters | The Straits Time