Radio4Child honours radio professionals for their creative messaging on COVID-19, Routine Immunization
Written by Radio4Child on 7 May 2022
Over 100 radio professionals from all over India vouched to put back focus on Routine Immunization, today, during a two-day capacity building workshop and felicitation event organized by Radio4Child.
Grammy Award Winner and UNICEF Celebrity Supporter Ricky Kej gave certificates of felicitation to the radio professionals from private FM and All India Radio for showing their commendable work during the COVID-19 pandemic. He urged all to put focus back on Routine Immunization.
“Radio is a powerful partner that can contribute towards all children getting vaccinated, living a healthy life, to their full potential. Building awareness, addressing information gaps, countering misinformation about routine immunization is a critical role that media and radio can and are playing. We need to continue the excellent work done during the pandemic in building awareness and countering rumours. Narrowing the immunization gap to reach the poor and marginalized communities is critical – it may be the child in a remote tribal village or even in an urban slum,” Ricky Kej said.
During the pandemic, Radio4Child engaged with over 2,000 radio professionals from all over India through capacity building workshops/sessions and one-on-one communication to sensitize and encourage them to come up with creative programmes around COVID-19 and vaccination and related issues like stigma and discrimination, Black Fungus, Jan Aandolan campaign for COVID Appropriate Behaviour, children’s education, nutrition, mental health issues during the pandemic, Routine Immunization and Intensified Mission Indradhanush, and special government programmes like ‘Har Ghar Dastak’ during the various phases of the pandemic.
As the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted essential immunization services due to multiple reasons, the possibility of un/partially vaccinated children being exposed to the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPD) is very high. India, launched the Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) 4.0 programme earlier this year to focus on high-risk areas, and areas where Routine Immunization sessions were impacted due to COVID-19 pandemic.
It costs more to control an outbreak than to prevent it. The opportunity costs of not vaccinating all children are staggering, particularly for overstretched health systems. Our work to provide children and communities with essential health services including vaccination is more critical now than ever. The Government of India is committed to provide essential health services for children in preventing and containing further disease outbreaks.
Rajeshwari Chandrasekar, Chief of Field Office, UNICEF Maharashtra, stressed on the need to spread the message of vaccine equity. “Narrowing the immunization gaps among the poor, marginalized, uneducated groups in all geographic locations – rural and urban – must be a priority. We must close the immunization gap in every state, in every district and in every community to ensure that children have life-long protection from vaccine preventable diseases,” she said.
The two-day event was held immediately after the World Immunization Week from 24 April to 30 April. The theme for this year’s WIW was #LongLifeForAll, with ‘long life’ reflecting the importance of lifespan vaccinations, and ‘for all’ reflecting the importance of vaccine equity. It celebrates the long history of vaccination in a tone of gratitude, care, and love.
Thanking the radio industry for its support to the Radio4Child platform during the pandemic, Zafrin Chowdhury, Chief of Communication, Advocacy and partnerships, UNICEF India, said, “Radio has the power to reach the remotest of the areas. It plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion and has tremendous agenda-setting powers. This year’s theme of WIW allows us to express our gratitude to all stakeholders including scientists, vaccine manufacturers, technicians, vaccinators, ASHA workers, frontline workers, ANMs, Anganwadi workers, parents and teachers who are working tirelessly in the country to ensure every child gets vaccinated in India against all deadly diseases. The theme allows us to Thank You – the radio fraternity and acknowledge the great work put in by you all during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also gives us an opportunity to bring back the focus on Routine Immunization,” she said.
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