By conducting awareness drives and counselling sessions to promote inoculation, the mission aims to help vaccinate at least 30,000 people by the end of this year.
Mission MaxVax launched by the Akanksha Foundation to ramp up vaccination figures across its communities has helped facilitate over 7,000 vaccinations in Pune and Mumbai in the last two and a half months.
The foundation collaborates with the government to provide quality education to children from low-income communities and runs 27 English medium schools in Pune, Mumbai and Nagpur, impacting over 10,000 children with the help of 575 educators and an alumni base of more than 4,000.
Saurabh Taneja, CEO of the foundation said the mission has set a target of vaccinating 70 per cent of its families by the end of this year. “We have helped facilitate at least 7,000 vaccinations across Pune and Mumbai,” he said. The awareness drive has been carried out using videos and posters, besides conducting individual counselling sessions.
“An initial survey in May-June had shown that one in two people were reluctant to take the Covid shot. However, assuming that there will be a third wave, our teams have rallied together to mobilise parents in busting myths that they have about vaccines,” Taneja said.
Teachers have been making weekly phone calls to enquire about the status of vaccination in families and they also do it during parent-teacher meetings, Taneja said, adding that their goal was to vaccinate at least 30,000 parents.
The mission enables priority access for the urban poor by easing the process right from online registrations to gaining access to a centre, tracking of doses and post vaccination care. “We are harnessing our power as schools, extending our role beyond educators to ensure the safety of children, their families and the larger community – a majority of whom are migrants and daily wagers,” Taneja said.
All Akanksha schools have pivoted to virtual learning and ensure children continue with their education despite closure of schools due to the pandemic.
Source: Read Full Article