Joby Vadakkumparambil (52) from Urulanthanny Village expressed that he doesn’t have a smartphone. He is not able to register himself for vaccination and the number of cases in the local area has increased which has restricted everyone to move out for any need. During this difficult time, the Information Sharing Centres (ISC) programme of Caritas India with the Kothamangalam Social Service Society in the village appeared as a helping hand to the entire community people. Volunteers at the ISC centre helped Joby to register himself for free vaccines along with 193 more people from the village.  

The rapid surge of new covid cases in Kerala has become a cause of concern. The State accounts for more than half of the country’s new Covid-19 infections. Kerala has fully vaccinated more than 20% of its eligible population and 52% – including 70% of people over 45 years – have received a single jab, much higher than the national average. But the concern still remains for the unvaccinated population. 

Caritas India initiated Covid ISC in Kerala to share awareness and demystifying myths related to covid and vaccines. One of the key activities of these centres is to promote vaccination among people by assisting them in registering for their vaccines. Caritas Samaritans are the frontline agents in this task to  

Kothamangalam Social Service Society, the implementing partner of the Kuttampuzha village ISC in the diocese organized a Vaccination Campaign. This vaccination drive was conducted at St. Jude Church, Urulanthanni with the help of Kuttampuzha PHC and Gram Panchayat in Urulanthanni, a small rural village under Kuttampuzha Panchayat of Ernakulam district.  The village has more than 400 families with mostly daily wagers working in the towns travelling more than 50 kms every day. This has made their situation more vulnerable and susceptible in the covid 19 context. The village was badly affected by infecting 94 people within two weeks in the month of July 2021.  

The ISC Samaritan Volunteers Ms Elizabeth Maria K Paul, and Ms Jasmin Jaimon, organized COVID awareness activities in the village like house visits and sharing correct information on covid, distributing IEC materials, health care information dissemination via telecommunication, helping the community people in registering for vaccination etc.  

KSSS has engaged 6 Social Work trainees from DePaul College of Social Work, Angamaly –  Ayana Satheesan, Amala Mathew, Ansu George, Anaswara Prabhakaran, Neethu Thankachan,  and Nijo Joy, to be engaged as Caritas Samaritans in Covid Response Project, residing in the village for one month. All of them were very active in all the services. As the local volunteers had to quarantine themselves as Ms Elizabeth was tested covid positive, the volunteers from DePaul came forward to lead Caritas India ISC and planned various programmes in collaboration with Kuttampuzha Panchayath and PHC of which covid vaccination was the highlight. To tackle this challenge Caritas India initiated the vaccination drive as part of tit information sharing center. Community, panchayat representatives, volunteers, etc showed their support for the camp. Primarily the volunteers collaborated with PHC in the vaccination process of all the palliative patients in the village. 20 patients were vaccinated at their own homes in the programme. The Samaritans were in charge of the vaccination registration and half-an-hour observation of the vaccinated palliative patients.

On 31^st July, the team organized a free vaccination campaign in the village for above 45 years of age with the help of Panchayath and PHC. The volunteers personally contacted the parish priest of St Jude Church, Urulanthanny and obtained permission to use the parish hall for the campaign. Physical and digital messages of covid appropriate behaviour and vaccination drive were prepared and shared through WhatsApp and other social media platforms. The Samaritans collected the contact numbers of more than 250 villagers and sent the posters personally to all of them. On 31^st July at 10.00 am vaccination drive started. Caritas India ISC was fully entrusted with all the preparations and pre and post registrations on the vaccination for which Dr Anoop, the Medical Officer personally gave necessary training to the volunteers. 193 people were vaccinated with covishield for free through the campaign organized by ISC of which 150 received the first dose of the vaccine. Both the governing body of the panchayath and PHC administration appreciated the efforts of the volunteers in the vaccination campaign and expressed their gratitude for the initiatives of Caritas India and KSSS at Urulanthanny village. “The services of Caritas India and Samaritan volunteers provide relief to the people with during this Covid epidemic this noble initiative,” said Dr. Anoop.   Besides free vaccination programmes, all the eight Samaritans extended door to door services of food kits, medicines, immunity-boosting medicines, to the needy.