End of a Saga

The Polio Emergency Response started in April 2011 by Core Group in West Bengal will come to an end on 5 May 2013. Dr. Roma Solomon the Director of Core Group Polio Project (CGPP), Mr. Jitendra Awale, Deputy Director of CGPP, Ms. Rina Dey, expert in Behavior Change Communication for CGPP, and Mr. Manojkumar, Data Management Officer of CGPP also are in Kolkata for a valedictory session. The session was organized at Hotel Indismart in Salt Lake with several dignitaries from Unicef, WHO, ADRA India and the partner organizations.

It is both time to thank one another and to appreciate the role of everyone. So, on 26 April, the team traveled to areas supported by Seva Kendra and Women’s Interlink Foundation, the two partners of CGPP where they met the community mobilizers and supervisors and interacted with them, appreciated them and thanked them for their wonderful task in bringing down resistance in most areas to zero levels and in some very hardcore areas under acceptable limits.

On 27^th and 28^th they spent the whole day at Bolpur, relaxing in our company, enjoying the warmth and love that we had to share with one another. On 29^th April, the valedictory session brought to fore the times and hardships the staff went through, the challenges in team building and the role each one played in strengthening emergency response. I had joined this team in April 2011 just for a period of 4 months. But then, the team in Delhi was so friendly and supportive, the task was challenging as the entire team of coordinators, supervisors and mobilizers were new to such response program, and it involved me to set up systems and procedures for networking, linkage with government, Unicef, WHO, Rotary, and managing the balance of relationship between partners. I enjoyed it….cherished it, and love it, as I became part of the CGPP family. CGPP too recognized me for the extra gifts I had by way of analytically looking at issues, programming and communication skills, besides the little knowledge on using technology for program management and monitoring.

Thank you friends for the wonderful support and love! Adieu everyone in the Polio Emergency Respones program. See you again!

Rush to Delhi and Kolkata

On 1 Feb, Tuesday, I left by the morning, 7.00 Indigo flight to Delhi on an invitation by CORE Group to visit ZMQ technologies in Gurgaon, Delhi. The flight could not land in Delhi for over 1.10 minutes, and so, instead of landing at 9.10, landed at 10.20, 20 minutes later than the scheduled time of the meeting, and reached the venue at 11.00. We were air borne as we kept rounding the Delhi sky for the entire period. What a colossal waste of gas / petrol although these planes and airports are enabled with CAT-III facilities! Since ZMQ and CORE Group team were waiting for me, the delayed the meeting to 10.45, and so, I did not miss much, and was able to catch up quickly with a brief given to me in couple of minutes. The day's discussions were about the new software that CORE Group is planning with technical support from ZMQ. The software will help community volunteers to update, retrieve and use data relating to every family / child in their areas so that immunization and health of the children in the families can be increased. My night return flight of Air India AI-021 scheduled to leave Delhi at 8.15 pm, left at 11.15 and I landed at 1.20 am. By the time I went to bed it was 3.30 am. (Missed meeting any of my friends in Delhi!)

The next day, 2 Feb 2013, I went to participate in the South East Asian conference on Public Health, held at Science City, Kolkata. The program was very interesting as lot of people from several parts of the country and few other countries were participating in the program. I also met a lot of doctors, engineers, students and teachers from various walks of life, interested in public health. The program went off smoothly. Of course, from CORE Group we had put up a stall in the venue which was frequented by hundreds of people throughout the day.

Best of Polio Rounds

Reports have come in! The polio vaccination round that started on 18 Nov, and extended till 24 Nov is the best of rounds so far in our working areas. More than 22,000 children have been vaccinated through the community mobilization activities of nearly 300 staff involved in the task. Resistance has come down from nearly 600 in last round and over 700 in previous round to 471 this month, and for the first time it is below 500! The children reporting not vaccinated due to reasons of sickness also came down from 757 in last round to 510.  Excellent job has been done through children's groups who were involved in bringing children for vaccination on booth day (the first day of vaccination drive) and high number of conversion of resistant families into accepting polio vaccine through health camps and excellent interpersonal communication skills.

On the Shores of Digha

On 5 Dec morning I traveled from Bolpur to Digha via Durgapur, picking in the ABSK team on the way. We were traveling for a training of Block and District Coordinators of the Polio Eradication Project supported by UNICEF and CORE India, of which I am the State Emergency Response Coordinator. 


A very long and tiring journey followed as we traveled through Purulia and West Medinipur districts. The road between Durgapur and Kharagpur, and between Belda and Digha via Egra was extremely bad. We reached at 5.30 pm.  As I reached the trainer team and I had to sit down to plan for the rest of the days. 6th and 7th December went very quickly as we mazed through the training module. I had two sessions in which I shared my views on Strategic Planning and Working Together through two animated stories. It was very interesting for all.

On 6th evening we also managed to walk down to the sea shore that is so crowded even in this non-tourist season, The unkempt roads, the poorly lit, shabbily kept shops and eateries are miles from making this destination into a good tourist destination. The way back was worse! Our vehicle kept getting a flat tyre repeatedly. We had to stay at last in Kolkata on 7th night, and travel back on the early morning of 8th. 

Overall, the training went good. The journey wasn't.