Today, Marmo woke up at 5:30 am as planned to get ready for work. He was dressed and ready to go when it started raining heavily. «
Today, Marmo woke up at 5:30 am as planned to get ready for work. He was dressed and ready to go when it started raining heavily. « I felt like going back to bed because I knew the roads would be inaccessible due to the heavy downpour, but at the same time, I knew there was a handful of families waiting for me across the river at Kaolo» Marmo simply changed his plan by changing his shoes.
Kaolo is a community in the Far North region of Cameroon which is unpassable in the rainy season due to heavy downpour and flooding. to make matters work, the bridge linking Kaloa with other communities had fallen off, compounding the challenges faced by the communities in the rainy season. Marmo says he is aware that zero-dose children communities are a breading ground for epidemics and is not willing to see any child suffer because their parents lacked access to get them vaccinated.
As predicted, no cars were willing to take that road. Together with his team, they got bikes, and where the bikes could not continue, they braved the river to meet the families across. Together with the community leader of Kaolo and the CHW of the area, a door-to-door mobilisation campaign was done to identify and mobilise ZDC families for vaccination on this day.
« We are happy you could make it. I was convinced you would not come. » the community health worker shook his hand firmly and warmly for braving the bad roads to Kaola village.
Marmo vaccinated 14 Zero Dose and lost to follow-up children with the life-saving vaccines in Kaolo that faithful day in Kaolo. “we opted for daily campaigns in such communities on strategic days or hours to catch up with our targetted population” Marmo explained how the timing and the choice of the venue are essential and can impact the turnout of such an outreach campaign in a community like Kaoulo.
« seeing the joy on each of these parents’ faces motivates me to brave the odds. Our goal is to reach the last mile, and we are ready to bend our sleeves up, wear boots and do all that it takes to ensure we find and vaccinate every child,» DIMBA Marmo, the Far North Regional coordinator for the R4S project, face brightened as he explained.
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