The vaccination drive lead by Asha tai Gowde
“The work that I did for Covid-19 awareness and vaccination helped a lot of people. It was often difficult to convince people who were afraid of getting vaccinated, but in the end, everyone got vaccinated and their health was safe. This makes me very proud and satisfied to work for the benefit of the community.” – Asha tai Gowde.
To support the Covid-19 awareness and vaccination efforts, Asha tai conducted household surveys and counseling to correct misconceptions and convince community members to get vaccinated. During her survey, Asha tai visited the farm of a large landowner and noticed a number of daily wage labourers working on sugar cane harvesting. As migrants from Beed, they were not recognized as residents of Pargaon, and thus largely ignored when it came to official village-level government vaccination records.
To address this issue, Asha tai reached out to the influential persons in her village, like the Sarpanch and Gram Panchayat members, to visit the landowner and convince him of the benefits of getting the labourers vaccinated. The second major issue that emerged was related to registering the labourers for vaccinations. Many labourers did not have their Aadhar cards with them, and some did not have mobile phones to register themselves. Asha tai and the SSP team decided to register the labourers online manually and coordinated with the laborers’ families who remained in their native village for getting the registration details. Through this initiative, over seventy-five labourers were registered and received their first vaccination in November 2021 and their second dose in February 2022, through the same process.
Between September 2021 and now, the entire village of Pargaon, with 4000 members and 850 households, was fully vaccinated (100 percent) for their first dose. Over 80 percent of the villagers have also received their second dose of the vaccine. Currently Asha tai is working towards 100 percent second-dose vaccination and campaigning for booster doses for eligible community members.
Pleased with the work that SSP and the grassroots women leaders were doing and their success in the vaccination camps, the Kallamb Taluka Health Officer also mentioned the participation and support of SSP in the government press note that was published on the government vaccination camps. Additionally, the successful initiative that Asha tai took in ensuring the vaccination of migrant labourers was scaled up by SSP in other villages, like Khamaswadi, Para, Khamkarwadi, Ranjani and Moha, which also see a large influx of labourers coming to work in sugarcane fields.
Swayam Shikshan Prayog
18th March, 2022