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| The UJL Immunization Mobile |
The Uganda Junior League (UJL) is the epitome of social mobilization. Any Ugandan, young or old, knows when the UJL team has arrived to their village by the catchy rhythms of the “Immunisation Song” by popular Ugandan rap artist Bebe Cool and the reverberating voice over the loud speaker announcing in the local language to “Protect your child from killer diseases like polio, measles, and meningitis. Go and immunize today!” Small children, some without even their pants on, emerge from within their homes on the side of the dirt road, women tilling the ground freeze in their tracks, and even little ones as young as two years old start shaking their hips, only to discover that all of this enticing raucous is coming from nothing else than the UJL Immunization Mobile—a big red van painted with logos of UJL, WHO, and UNICEF and “Immunise Now!” messages. The Mobile never fails to catch the attention of anyone whose path it crosses.
I went into the field with UJL for one week of a three week social mobilization tour in the western region of Uganda. UNICEF Uganda has been partnering with UJL to conduct much of the essential social mobilization activities in support of routine immunization in 38 of the worst performing districts in Uganda. My role on this trip was to provide “supportive supervision” as a UNICEF representative, conduct surveys and interviews with everyone from the District Health Official to mothers and community members, and generally support and participate in the social mobilization activities, such as the Immunization Sports Competitions, Immunization Elder and Child Health Ambassador trainings, and community-based Immunization Outreaches. Now, I wrote a very lovely six-page Field Visit Feedback Report with all of my observations and recommendations from this trip. But I don’t want to talk about that.
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| Me with most of the UJL team on my first day in the field in the Kyegegwa District. |
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| Supporting the UJL team at an Immunization Assembly in a Kyegegwa primary school. |
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| Using my "African English" to speak to the children about Immunization. |
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| The mamas playing a game of "net ball" in a local trading center. |
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| Children playing a spirited game of "foot ball" in a Kyegegwa trading center. |
My life in Uganda really started when I went into the field with UJL. The UJL team was young, fun, and energetic. Our days in the field were long, hot, and very tiring. We often started at 8 a.m. and worked until 8 or 9 p.m., often without even having time to stop for lunch. We typically stayed in humble accommodations, at best with running cold water (no hot water), along with swarms of mosquitoes (which apparently loved feasting on my foreign blood), no internet connection, and barely a cell phone signal. But nobody whined or complained. We just looked forward to the evenings when we could kick back, eat our second meal of the day, and enjoy chatting about life. And it was during these relaxed parts of the day that I got to know my fellow companions and become friends. I mean, real friends. Not the courteous and obliging “hellos” and “how are yous”, but rather those moments of woman to woman connections, goofy jokes, and big belly laughs. After a month of being completely friend-less in a faraway foreign land, this was one of the most refreshing moments yet. I never realize more how completely human I am until I become so hungry to connect, to laugh, to hug. And you know what? Even in Uganda, people need the same things.
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Rachel taking a moment to play dress up at a
local market before a sports mobilization event. |
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Doreen joining in the fun with for a moment
of laughter. |
Some of my favorite parts of being in the field with UJL were the opportunities to see and talk to children at schools, reminding me of my days as a school teacher, and getting to know Nurse Daphne, the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) focal person in the Kyegegwa District. I was drawn to her genuine and kind-hearted nature, and I truly enjoyed interviewing her about the work she does in her district to carry out immunization outreaches in the community. My supervisor at UNICEF had asked me to collect a couple human interest stories from the field, and I knew that Daphne would be an ideal person to interview. I recorded our interview on my iPhone, and a week later when I was transcribing the interview from the UNICEF office in Kampala, a smile came to my face as I listened to myself ask her questions and listen to her stories as she spoke in a warm voice with her Ugandan accent, which I find so endearing.
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| Me with Nurse Daphne at an Immunization Sports Competition in Kyenjojo. |
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| School children performing traditional dance and singing songs that promote immunization. |
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| Children singing at an immunization performance. |
As strange as it may sound, I think this field visit with UJL and their infamous immunization mobile reminded me of how human people are. Despite our differences, we all have so much in common. We instinctively start dancing at the sound of catchy music, we want our babies to be healthy, we aspire for our work to be meaningful, and we strive to have happy lives. Much of the messaging that is used in Uganda to promote and encourage immunization plays off of these very human desires. One of my favorite quotes from the story I wrote on Nurse Daphne focuses on that very theme: “[Mothers] have seen live examples [of immunization]; families which have immunized, their babies are doing well. And these ones which were not immunized, their babies have gotten measles and have died. When we go down there, people are informed of the killer diseases. Once a baby is not immunized and contracts such a disease, like it or not, it has to die. And, I ask the mothers, ‘Do you want your babies to die?’ And they reply, ‘No, we can’t let our babies die.’ Because first of all, this vaccine is free, and the treatment is expensive, and it is not there.”
Since I got back to Kampala, the capital, after the field visit with UJL I have been working on writing my reports from the field and crafting my human interest stories. One of these stories may come out in a newspaper center spread that I have been working on with one of the media relations specialists at UNICEF. The center spread is focused on Africa Vaccination Week, which is from April 21-28 and aims to increase awareness and demand for immunization services in Uganda. If one of my stories does make it into the center spread, which will go into the three major Ugandan newspapers, I will be sure to share that as well.
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| Working at the UNICEF Uganda office in Kampala. |
Next week is gearing up to be quite busy and eventful. I have been working on coordinating for the Africa Vaccination Week campaign all month, and I've even coordinated my first media briefing to take place on Tuesday, April 22nd. I have been diligently navigating my way through the bureaucracy of not only UNICEF but also the Ugandan government, organizing meetings with the Ministry of Health to plan and organize all of the media events for Africa Vaccination Week. As in all my work, I do not rush, I just take my time and put one foot in front of the other until, often to my own amazement, I reach a successful end. Through this technique, I have been able to form positive and collaborative relationships with my colleagues at UNICEF and the Ministry of Health, and I am hopeful that next week will be a big success. Here’s to immunizing every Ugandan child!
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| School children watching the girls' "net ball" Immunization Competition game. |
