A story from the frontlines: Lights. Camera. Action!

Mama Koko is a 36-year old rural fisherwoman and a mother of 2 kids, who live in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria. The Niger-Delta region, home to thousands of communities with extractive industries is one of Nigeria’s most deprived regions. It is faced with poverty, environmental contamination from oil spills, poor health-seeking behavior, and very poor geographical accessibility to health services. A few months ago, Mama Koko lost her 3rd baby to Tetanus 20 days after the boy was born. A death that could have prevented through vaccination.

 

Every year in Nigeria, thousands of kids die from diseases that vaccines can prevent. Out in the blossoming cities, access to and utilization of prenatal and postnatal care for a mother and her child is often not a point of concern. But in the creeks and in the communities strewn across the delta, the story is different for Mama Koko, many mothers like her, and their children.

Corona Management System (CMS) is leveraging the power of story-telling to change this!

A future not guaranteed

“The health workers tell me that my baby died of Tetanus and that vaccination would have saved him”

Mama Koko

Africa has a history steeped in Story-telling. For decades, we have faced up to the challenges of HIV/AIDS and Gender-based violence through story-telling. We have also addressed reconciliation post-genocide through story-telling. And now, we are working with women and girls in local communities to co-create, prototype, collect feedback, iterate, and perform plays that tell thousands of stories of women and children so that communities can demand vaccination services as a right and utilize these services fully.

 

Mama Koko’s greatest regret was not knowing about tetanus and the vaccine that she could have taken during her pregnancy to prevent her baby from getting. Through Community Theatre, we leverage the power of real stories to increase awareness, build trust, motivate communities, and support efforts to make doing the right thing, the easiest thing. Imagine Mama Koko and women like her working with us to co-create content, that educates and amplifies the positive stories that can increase demand for vaccination. Imagine watching women in communities, home from fishing and the market, gathered at the community center, watching Mama Koko and other community members act out their story

Visiting fisher women in the Creeks in the Niger-Delta
In communities in the Niger-Delta, in Yenagoa, Ekeremor, and in Ahoada-West, we are working with the leadership of the health system, the community leaders, the health workers, and community members to create and perform theatre to increase demand for vaccination services. Through community theatre, we are putting communities back at the center of primary healthcare service delivery by strengthening their involvement in vaccination services as an entry point to the entire health and well-being of the community. Mama Koko has lived the worst experience and she is the right person to tell her story. Let her story, reshape the world for millions of other women and children!