The field staff on duty to implement the first phase of the national Pulse Polio Immunisation (PPI) drive on Sunday had a tough time in half a dozen remote tribal hamlets in Bangarupalem mandal in the district bordering with Tamil Nadu, with several parents showing reluctance to make their kids take the drops, while some others almost ran away from their hamlets.
Bangarupalem mandal, considered the most backward region in Chittoor district, is dotted with more than two dozen remote forested villages, mostly with tribal population, along the Tamil Nadu border. It’s a regular feature every year that in spite of the best efforts of the officials, these hamlets always pose a risk of getting neglected by virtue of their remoteness, lingering poverty and illiteracy. Traditional belief among these families is that the children who were given polio drops would suffer stunted growth in later years, and that their virility levels would come down. In some cases, mothers preferred to have the drops for girls while "protecting" their sons.
Carrot and stick plan
The Rural Organisation for Poverty Eradication Services (ROPES), a Bangarupalem-based NGO, has deployed a 25-member team to assist the medical and paramedical field staff to administer polio drops to infants in about 50 hamlets, covering nearly 2,500 children. Expecting the pranks of innocent parents, the volunteers had formed awareness teams with the help of school boys and girls in vulnerable areas. Nearly two weeks prior to the PPI drive, the schoolchildren were made to extensively tour the rural side, shouting slogans in favour of the drive and persuading lactating mothers "not to miss the drops" for their children. The campaigners had to threaten them that if they missed the drops, the government officials would track down the children again, and that such cases would face a cut in their governmental benefits. They kept repeatedly telling them that by risking to forego the drops, they would be turning their children permanently handicapped, and such children would not get any support in society.
At Kanchala Cheruvu and Nagalavarindlu hamlets, some parents had left the villages carrying their babies, on seeing the PPI teams arriving there.
The ROPES volunteers had to run after them and bring back the children to take in the vital drops. Similar scenes were witnessed at Ramarajapuram, Mamidimanukunta and Kanthalacheruvu ST colonies.
The staff observed that the schoolchildren played a crucial role in identifying the targeted infants in their respective hamlets, reversing the attempts to hide the children.
Winds of change
Interestingly, in some other hamlets such as Kuppaiahgari Indlu, Paleru ST Colony and Andareddipalle village, parents remained enthusiastic to participate in the drive, even cancelling their errands on Sunday. The inmates of Indiramma Colony, mostly daily wagers and agriculture workers, on the outskirts of Bangarupalem avoided going out and preferred to spend time with their infants and give them polio drops.
The ROPES chairman, K. Dhanasekaran, said that deploying schoolchildren in Pulse Polio awareness campaigns would go a long way in giving permanent results. "These grown-up children know in which house of their hamlet there is an infant. They can't escape. A number of school students joined our tom-tom campaigns in the rural side. Our team members had even made night stays in vulnerable hamlets to educate the parents on the PPI drive. Our objective is not to miss even a single infant in these tribal hamlets. We are also requesting school teachers in vulnerable hamlets and villages to keep alerting the villagers and students periodically about the PPI drives," he said.
