Background and Topics

PIYUSHA MAJUMDAR: Hello. I’m going to talk about importance of community engagement in public programs, how community participation became one of the best strategies and acted as a turning point in eliminating disease like polio from the countries. Now, we are beginning the session by showing you a short video that emphasizes that community engagement can even go beyond advertising or mass media communication. This video is showing the tale of community vaccinators in Karachi, Pakistan who tackle the trust issue related to vaccines. As you can see in this video community vaccinators are the backbone of any government program. Thus, it is important for the vaccinator to build a trust factor among the community.

There are some people who are showing apprehensions about the vaccine, which could only be addressed by having an active dialogue with a credible community influencer. So here is the video for you. [VIDEO PLAYBACK]

[BIRDS SQUAWKING]

[CHILDREN CHATTERING]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[END PLAYBACK]

PIYUSHA MAJUMDAR: So, today, I’m going to talk about three essential themes related to community participation. First one, why it is important to engage community in health programs, secondly, the effective strategies and processes to engage community and health programming, and, lastly, how community-engaged health improvement is a continuous, long-term, evolving process and its implications for the health program.