The many faces of immunization.10.5281/zenodo.8166653

World Immunization Week: What do you see?

Reda SadkiGlobal health

This is the preface of the new publication The many faces of immunization. Learn more… Download the collection… Every day, thousands of health workers, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, get up and go to work with a single goal in mind ­ to ensure that vaccines reach those who need them. To mark World Immunization Week 2023 (24­–30 April 2023) and the launch of the “Big Catch Up” campaign, the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) invited members of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) to share photographs of themselves and their daily work. More than 1,000 visual stories were shared. These are not the carefully composed and technically accomplished shots of the professional photographer: rather, they capture a raw and authentic view of what immunization means in practice. The transport challenges. The concerned and loving mothers. The curious onlookers. The dialogue between practitioners and community members. The schoolchildren waving their vaccination cards. …

Visual storytelling for health

Visual storytelling for health

Reda SadkiEvents, Global health

Do you work for health? Your are invited to a visual storytelling workshop with health care workers from 44 countries. The Geneva Learning Foundation’s first Fellow of Photography, Chris de Bode, will lead this workshop. 544 health care workers from 44 countries have already confirmed their participation. 80% of participants are sub-national staff working in fragile contexts. Most work for their country’s ministry of health. Chris deBode spent decades on assignments, traveling around the globe for various NGOs, magazines, and newspapers. Now, he has partnered with the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) to share his experience with health practitioners who are there every day, as they learn to tell their own visual stories about immunization, the impacts of climate change on health, and other issues that matter for the communities they serve. “Technical knowledge is not decisive in making your picture”, says Chris. “The person behind the camera makes the difference. …

IA2030 Movement HPV vaccination national EPI consultation

Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030): National EPI leaders from 31 countries share experience of HPV vaccination

Reda SadkiGlobal health

What difference can peer-led learning and action make for national EPI planners seeking new strategies to support HPV vaccine introduction or reintroduction? The stakes are high: HPV vaccination efforts, if successful, will avert 3.4 million deaths by 2030. On Friday, EPI focal points for HPV and other national-level MOH colleagues from 31 countries convened under the banner of the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), which connects over 60,000 primarily sub-national health staff worldwide. What is the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030)? This time, it was national HPV vaccination focal points and other national EPI planners who joined to share experience between countries of ‘what works’ (and how). They also discussed how the Geneva Learning Foundation’s unique peer learning-to-action pathway could help them overcome barriers they are facing to ensure that local communities understand and support the benefits of this vaccine. Such a pathway can complement existing, top-down forms …

Aerial view of a flooded urban residential area of Dera Allah yar city in Jaffarabad District, Baluchistan Province, Pakistan. Credit: Gavi/2022/Asad Zaidi

Ten eyewitness reports from the frontline of climate change and health

Reda SadkiGlobal health

The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) has created a platform enabling health workers to describe the impacts of climate change on their local communities. Here are ten of the most striking reports. Published on 30 November 2023 on the Gavi #VaccinesWork blog. Written by Ian Jones for Gavi. In July 2023, more than 1,200 health workers from 68 countries shared their experiences of changes in climate and health at a unique Geneva Learning Foundation event designed to shed light on the realities of climate impacts on the health of the communities they serve. A special TGLF report – On the frontline of climate change and health: A health worker eyewitness report – includes a compendium and analysis of these 1,200 health workers’ observations and insights. Here are ten of the most striking. Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi, who works for the Ministry of Health in Abuja, Nigeria, has noticed big changes to the …