Vaccination for Persons With Disability Kickstarts the American India Foundation Initiative to Vaccinate a Million Most Vulnerable Indians

American India Foundation (AIF) organized a vaccination drive for the first batch of Persons with Disability at Apollo Hospital, Jasola Vihar, New Delhi on Monday, as part of its The First Million initiative to vaccinate 1 million people from the most vulnerable communities. On this occasion, AIF also launched the brand identity of Mission Corona Vijay – Har Baazu Mein Taaqat, a behavior change communication (BCC) campaign, under The First Million, aimed to address and decimate myths, misinformation and untruths propagating vaccine hesitancy. Gathering nuanced findings through qualitative research, the campaign will nudge behavior change, remove hesitancy and mobilize vulnerable population in the identified geographies. AIF has recognized persons with disability, migrant laborers along with street vendors, sex workers, tribal population and women working in the unorganized sector, as the five most vulnerable groups in need of immediate intervention.
 
“With the Government of India taking aggressive measures to expand vaccination eligibility to all age groups (above the age of 18 years), the current limited supply may soon leave the most vulnerable groups at the margins. At AIF we believe, as long as these imbalances in vaccine access persist, we will act as the allies of the government, to protect India’s most vulnerable and marginalized,” said Mathew Joseph, Country Director, AIF.
 
AIF’s strategic partners for the initiative include Uber as Mobility partner; Apollo Hospital as the Vaccine administration partner; EY as the Process Monitoring partner; National Association for the Blind (NAB), National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) as the Implementation & outreach partners; Wunderman Thompson and Gaon Connection as the BCC Campaign Partners; and Ministry of Electronics & IT’s Common Services Centre (CSC) as the end to end facilitation and registration partner. The First Million initiative is already on the ground and focusing on mobilizing the vulnerable groups, facilitating registrations, securing priority vaccination slots for the vulnerable population and resolving access issues through personalized support in the urban centres.
 
Rolling out the campaign and the first vaccination drive, Nishant Pandey, CEO, AIF said “Vaccination is the only sustainable way out of the grave COVID crisis which has resulted in unprecedented morbidities in the country. With our experience of working with frontline workers, communities, government and healthcare experts, we have designed a program with equity, inclusion and positive discrimination as core guiding values to prioritize a million most vulnerable people of the population, mobilize them and help them get vaccinated. Already on the ground, this initiative aims to fortify the public health ecosystem for future COVID related emergencies.”
 
Thanking all the partners along with the local and state administration, Nishant emphasized “COVID crisis requires a shared response. Collaboration is vital to strengthen the response and overcome one of the most devastating challenges of human existence. Mitigating misinformation around vaccination, the campaign under the larger initiative, will take the first step towards countering vaccine diffidence.”