Meeting with UNICEF officials

Guess my computer skills are totally lacking, as far as moving and saving photos to insert here, but I wanted to report on a meeting I had with UNICEF officials yesterday in Kathmandu.  As most know, UNICEF is a partner with WHO and ROTARY with respect to the efforts for eradication of Polio worldwide.  Through an introduction from Past Rotary International Vice-President, Michael McGovern, I was able to arrange for a meeting at UNICEF South Asia headquarters yesterday.  I invited my Dream Team member, Chuck Bortasch to join me, as well as Nepal National PolioPlus Committee chair, Ratna Man Sakya.  We arrived at the UNICEF headquarters and were welcomed bu Dr. Paul Rutter, Regional Health Adviser and Elke Wisch, a special adviser, both of whom have been working diligently with Mike McGovern and others to finally get a handle on ending this campaign in the near future.  We were also "joined" via Skype, by Harsham Ali Khan, who has been very instrumental in working with  the program in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Paul Rutter provided an overview of where we were and where we are currently in this campaign.  The most challenging aspects of this, obviously, lie with the inability to reach over one million children in Taliban/Isis controlled areas of Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan.  Through nearly two hours of discussion, and with suggestions from Chuck and myself, and just suggesting some possible solutions, initially by offering something in addition to simply knocking on doors of households month after month, where people are tiring of being "pestered" and are therefore, resisting or refusing to have their children immunized. They see no benefits in the vaccination process and unless or until "we" are successful in convincing them that there are other benefits available IF they will have their children immunized, then we face months, if not years of stalling and delays.

Chuck is a person who has great knowledge and background in telecommunications, specifically with Internet access and by him suggesting a possibility of providing such access and with me suggesting that with upcoming elections in Afghanistan, perhaps it would be profitable for the message to be conveyed to candidates that they "want our country to be safe and healthy" and one way to do this is to have your children immunized.  Another possibility is using the charismatic Pakistani cricketer and his attraction to encourage Pakistanis to get their kids immunized.  If such campaigns were launched in both countries, who knows, just MAYBE we could make serious in-roads in these remote areas where people are resisting the vaccination program.\

Elke and Paul have agreed to further explore the feasibility of these suggestions and possibly to get back to us, before we depart from Nepal (and even while we are in India for the next week) to possibly arrange for a meeting with other officials to explore all possibilities, beginning with the suggestions that Chuck and I made.

All in all, it was a very successful meting - one which I feared would simply be a half-hour "meet and greet" event, but materialized into some very in depth discussions.

Check out the BLOG for further details and maybe even a few photos.