Social entrepreneurship to combat vaccination myths and deniers

On January 26, India’s 73rd Republic Day, Aanandita from Grade 12 was presented with a State Commendation award by the Chandigarh Administration for her initiative ‘Vaccine Champion’, working with promoting Covid vaccinations and combating hesitancy and vaccination deniers in India. We reached out to Aanandita to find out more about her initiative and how the commendation may influence and encourage her in the future.  

This has motivated me further to keep pursuing my dream to become a social entrepreneur in the field of health care – Aanandita, Grade 12   

Aanandita has had a long interest in the Indian community, particularly with regards to health and well-being. “I noticed that there was definitely a knowledge gap between the different members of the society that contributed to lack of awareness about a healthy lifestyle and perpetuated misconceptions about things like vaccination”, explains Aanandita, who therefore was motivated to start ‘Vaccine Champion’ as well as some other initiatives to create more awareness in society. 

‘Vaccine Champion’ aims to address vaccination hesitancy, by providing accurate information while challenging myths. The second wave of Covid19 in India brought so much devastation, and the team behind the initiative hoped that vaccination would prevent that from happening. “But I had heard stories about how many people, even some healthcare workers, were reluctant to accept the vaccines”, says Aanandita, who began thinking of ways to help fight the problem. However, leaving her house was out of the question, especially during this second wave. “Therefore, I thought of setting up an advocacy group run by high school students. Our aim was to recruit vaccine champions in every city, every school of India so that we could reach a wide audience.” 

Operating on online platforms made things tougher, and vetting the information was sometimes challenging, as different media outlets release different information regarding changes in legislations and other developments. “Hence the creation of each post, video and blog can sometimes take up to a few hours”, says Aanandita, whose team grew over time, and got more organised and skilled as they recognised reliable websites and sources of information. 

Receiving the award has made Aanandita and the team motivated: “It feels amazing to know that my efforts are appreciated by members of society, and that gives me extra motivation to continue my project and achieve the goals we have set.” Future plans of the initiative involves targeting people without social media access by reaching out to them at a grassroot level in cooperation with organisations. “Once the restrictions loosen up, we aim to work even harder so that our country is better prepared to deal with another wave, if it happens”, says Aanandita, who is planning to raise funds for those who are not able to pay for their vaccinations, or do not have access to free government sponsored centres. “We also intend to engage with international organisations targeting vaccine hesitancy.”