Gentle persuasion and persistence can work wonders! Proving this at the ground level is the example of Mallampodur village, located 200 kilometres from Gadchrioli district headquarters, Maharashtra, where people congregate on being addressed through a public address system in Madia language to get themselves vaccinated.

Cut to a few weeks earlier, when this scene was not visualised as the local people were distrustful of the authorities who had come to vaccinate them.

In this hilly area which is dominated by Naxals, in the forested interiors of Abujmad hills, the Madia-Gond tribals, generally fro the Chhota Madia group of the tribe, stayed away from the officials and healthcare workers.

The reason why there was a changeover in the attitude of the villagers was due to the novel approach adopted by the officials. Led by Project Officer of Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP, Manjul Jindal, it was their patience that turned the tide.

Talking to the Indian Express, Jindal said: “What you can see here today is a result of dogged pursuit by my team of naib tahsildar Anmol Kamble and the talathis, kotwals and gram sevaks of 125 villages of the tehsil.”

Sharing details of their effort, Kamble informed IE: “When we started the campaign at the end of April, we faced hostile villagers in Kospundi and Kudkeli, who sent us away and said they didn’t need the vaccine. There were a lot of misconceptions, such as vaccines causing death, ordinary people and officials receiving different vaccines, it’s part of a kidney racket etc. Often, they would ask why they were being vaccinated when there was no Covid in their village. We had a difficult time convincing them. We would trek for more than 20 km to villages like Binagunda, Kuwakodi and Fodewada up on the Abujmad hills only to be ignored.“

Thinking out of the box, the administration got a film in Madia language made. The script of the film was penned by Talathi Sachin Kannake of Chichoda village and directed by Yechli village’s Talathi Rayalu Talandi.

The film incorporated the messages from members of the local zilla parishad and panchayat samiti, local community and also Prakash Amte, a social activist, whose Lok Biradari Prakalp provides education and health services to the tribals.

It was through constant dialogue with the villagers that the teams consisting of Government department officials achieved a breakthrough.

All these efforts had gradual but definite results. For instance, the vaccination drive at Bhamragad is almost complete.

The figures present the success story as out of the 35,000 population of the tahsil, 7,239 people are above 45 years of age. Of this 3,757 have received the first dose, informed Kamble. He added that in the 18 to 45 category vaccination so far, 141 people received the vaccine.

The Mallampodur success is rather important considering that so far no Coronavirus cases have been reported. Gajanan Bhandekar confirmed this to the media. “We haven’t had a single Covid patient yet.” Then, what made them take the jabs? “The government has explained it to us. Now, we have no doubts about the campaign.”

Mallampodur is not alone as other villages too which have had no Covid cases on releasing the importance of vaccination have gone ahead with it.