Civic authorities have reached out to six non-governmental organisations to help them find teenagers in the slums for vaccination.
The organisations that the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has approached are Azim Premji Foundation, United Way, Care Foundation, Maarga, Teach for India, and Make a Difference, besides the social welfare department, said a civic official in the know.
They have been tasked to find teenagers in the city slums in the 15 to 17 age group for Covid vaccination.
Marga has asked its 56 volunteers active in 22 slums of Koramangala and Jayanagar to scour the one lakh dwellers in the next one week to identify eligible teenagers. The organisation, which arranged for vaccination camps for adults till now, has been told by the local Primary Health Centre (PHC) that pediatric vaccination will be available initially in schools.
“But children in slums include runaways, new migrants to the city, Covid orphans and child labour with no documents,” Maarga’s executive director Rajendran Prabhakar said.
“There must be around 5,000 children in these slums. We still have to identify which of them don’t have school IDs and Aadhaar cards.”
Parents of adolescents in slums have concerns different from that of educated parents, he said. “Such as whether vaccination would disturb the menstrual cycles of their adolescent daughters,” he added, noting that the best way to address their fears is to hold medical camps and let doctors address their concerns.
United Way’s project head Lokesh Gujjarappa said their 12 community mobilisers will enumerate the 15-17 age group children in Dasarahalli, Bommanahalli, Bengaluru East, and Mahadevapura, the four zones they operate in. “We have undertaken a water and sanitation project in five slums of Vijinapura, Priyanka Nagar, Koramangala, Sanjay Nagar and Rajiv Gandhi Nagar. We can extend our services here or in any of the four BBMP zones we work in,” he said.
“As per our data last month, as far as adults are concerned, 1.32 lakh are due for their second dose in Bengaluru East, while 70,322 await the second jab in Mahadevapura. In Dasarahalli, 34,020 are yet to take both jabs and in Bommanahalli, 87,230 are yet to be vaccinated,” he said.
Dr Ravi Surpur, commissioner, Social Welfare Department, said 1,60,000 students reside in the state’s 1,867 pre-matric and post-matric hostels. “We are yet to tally the number of 15 to 17-year-olds living in these hostels in various districts of Karnataka,” he said.
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