Benito Douglas, 34, from the Nansadi area in Thyolo district is a business man who has been plying his trade at Goliati Trading Centre for many years. He told Applied Development Communications and Training Services (ADECOTS) officer that he has been hearing about COVID-19 and its vaccine for the past four years, but he did not gather courage to get the vaccine until the organization organized the roadshow at Goliati Market.
“Honest speaking, I have been hearing about COVID-19 for many years but I was still hesitant to go to the Health Center to receive its vaccine. But it was until ADECOTS organized the Moyo Ndi Mpamba COVID-19 Roadshow at Goliati market when I decided to receive the vaccine,” said Benito.
He thanked the organization for the initiative to take the COVID-19 awareness campaign to his market, saying he had been grumbling about time management and distance to the nearby Health Center in order to access information on COVID-19 and its vaccine.
“As a business person, I have always been in dilemma to leave my business to go to the Health Center to get the vaccine. But when ADECOTS organized the Roadshow at our market I only spent few minutes of walking to get the vaccine. Additionally, I enjoyed the proceedings of the roadshow such as live music performances while operating my Kaunjika business,” said Benito.
Benito was one of many people who received the COVID-19 vaccine at Goliati Trading Centre during a roadshow organized by ADECOTS.
Another business person, Fanny Sikweya said the Roadshow provided her with accurate information about COVID-19, which helped her to decide to get the vaccine.
“I was one of the doubters of the COVID-19 vaccine because I heard a lot of misinformation about it. For example, rumours were rife in our area that those who got the vaccine would die within a short time.
But I was convinced with the information, which the speakers gave out during the Roadshow, to receiver the vaccine,” said Sikweya.
Among other strategies, ADECOTS uses roadshows to create awareness and demand for the COVID-19 vaccine. District Health Promotion Officer (HPO) for Thyolo Fanuel Makina described the strategy as a huge booster to the administration of the COVID-19 vaccine.
He said Thyolo is one of the districts with low uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine due to deep rooted religious/traditional beliefs, myths and misconceptions. Thus the roadshows were helping in debugging the myths and improve instant vaccine uptake.
“One thing I like about the idea of the roadshows is that there is a blend of services such as expert information, entertainment and vaccine administration that are complementing each other to fight COVID-19. The entertainment aspect is making people happy and the whole process of getting the vaccine fun,” said Makina.
He added that Thyolo district hospital was registering increased numbers of people getting the COVID-19 vaccine through diverse interventions like the roadshows conducted by ADECOTS.
ADECOTS roadshow manager Tonny Seunda said the idea of the roadshows were to create an enabling environment, which uses the power of arts to promote awareness and demand for COVID-19 vaccine.
“People no longer need to be afraid in order to get a service like COVID-19 vaccine. They can still get it while feeling happy like listening to their favourite music. That’s the power of the roadshow which uses the power of edutainment to influence positive behaviours,” said Seunda.
ADECOTS believes that edutainment plays a big role in promoting positive health outcomes in society.
“We believe that when people are entertained, when they are enjoying themselves, according to Cahill et al. 1994, there is “enhanced memory associated with emotional arousal resulting from an activation of beta-adregenic stress hormone systems during and after the emotional experience.” In other words, if one’s adrenalin is aroused, one tends to remember the event that triggered it as well as details surrounding that event.”
Therefore, edutainment is supporting our interventions not only to address emotional needs of the people, but also their physical needs such as getting the vaccine happily,” said Damiano Chisikwa, ADECOTS’ campaign manager.
With financial and technical support from the Access Challenge, ADECOTS is implementing Moyo Ndi Mpamba (Ndabaitsa, Mwabaitsa?) COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH) through the Phalombe and Thyolo District Health Offices (DHOs).
The campaign seeks to debug the prevailing myths and misconceptions on COVID-19 and its vaccine, and promote health-seeking behaviours aimed at increasing the uptake of Covid-19 vaccine.