OUR WORK Gavi the vaccine alliance
Stories about the hard-to-reach children at risk of killer diseases.
Vaccines have transformed the survival chances of children across the world. The biggest challenge faced by international organizations such as Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance is reaching children in remote communities, informal settlements, and conflict-ridden areas. Yet, these are the children at the most risk who can gain the most from being protected. Their stories can only be told truthfully and cost-effectively by those who work with them regularly.
GOAL
To give faces and voices to children who are difficult to see and in peril of vaccine-preventable diseases.
SECTOR EXPERTISE
Health
The Work
There are two ways to collect stories of vaccine successes from the world’s hardest-to-reach communities. One costs a fortune and tends to produce stilted, half-true stories divorced from reality — that involves sending a foreign camera crew and a foreign reporter to try to capture community stories. Our way is to train community health workers to think like reporters and capture images that will make a photo editor proud. They won’t ever look or read like the work of a Reuters employee, but that is the point: they will be compelling but also authentic and a true reflection of the work happening in remote villages, informal settlements, and conflict zones.
Colleagues with years of experience in print, TV and social media reporting ran online courses for health workers around the world on how to spot stories, tell them in a way that will be meaningful on the other side of the world and capture pictures and video that will enthral target audiences. These sessions happened in three parts and were offered to over 200 participants in English, French, Hindi, Swahili, and Urdu. The results tell their own story, click on the video below.