Deadline: 20-Jan-24
The UNICEF BiH is inviting experienced Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working with underserved communities and/or communities with low coverage of vaccination – Roma, religious communities, new parents and pregnant women and other groups of the most vulnerable children and families.
Immunization has proven to be one of the most successful and cost-effective public health interventions. It saves millions of lives each year. In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), routine childhood immunization services are mandatory and free of charge. However, in recent years the immunization programme has been experiencing decreasing trends.
Most countries experienced drops in childhood vaccination coverage rates, erasing decades of progress, and lifesaving vaccination campaigns were postponed, putting millions of children at risk of diseases such as measles or polio.
Currently, immunization programmes in the country face numerous and ever-growing challenges, including:
- Low level of trust in immunization and safety of vaccines, including misinformation
- Low health literacy
- Limited information, education and communication activities on immunization
- Lack of targeted interventions to increase vaccination, particularly for Roma and other hard to reach population
To address these multiple challenges, a multi-sectoral approach is needed, including work with affected population through community engagement.
Objectives
- Overall objective is to support the country’s efforts to reduce burden of vaccine preventable disease outbreaks, reduce zero dose and defaulters by ensuring high level of vaccine trust, acceptance and demand among the target populations for childhood immunization.
- The primary objective of this initiative is to develop and implement a immunization promotion and community engagement plan/strategy among communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina that will facilitate equitable access to immunization services and foster community awareness and acceptance of vaccines, thereby leading to the increase of vaccine demand, improvement in the vaccination coverage among children and overall improvement of health protection.
Activities
- One or more of the following activities are to be applied to achieve this objective:
- Enhanced Community Health Awareness: Develop and implement interventions to amplify understanding of immunization’s critical role in communicable disease prevention and overall health promotion, with a special emphasis on awareness of the underserved communities about the importance and comprehensive benefits of vaccination.
- Community Engagement Meetings: Organize and conduct community engagement meetings at the local level with key influencers, representatives of primary health care center(s), population opinion leaders and notables to address and overcome vaccine hesitancy and refusal. Maintain continuous communication with the community and secure feedback mechanisms that will lead to a better understanding of the specific community needs and concerns related to vaccination and supply proper support in addressing those.
- Outreach Services Plan Facilitated: Create a partnership with local primary healthcare center(s) that will lead to joint design and implementation of a comprehensive outreach immunization service plan targeting underserved communities, aiming to bridge the gap in accessibility and availability of immunization services. Engage with the community and local government and local health authorities to provide community immunization sites to prevent out-of-pocket expenditure on immunization and work on the sustainability of outreach activities and these sites in the long-term.
- Education and information: Organize workshops within the communities on the importance, benefits and safety of vaccines to break down possible prejudices and misinformation.
- Social Mobilization: Using community mediators, implement social mobilization campaigns with children and parents visiting health facilities or outreach vaccination sites, ensuring social inclusion of these communities, providing information and encouraging them to complete vaccination of their children.
Special Considerations
- Project proposals that clearly link proposed activities with the project objectives, including measuring of results, will have advantage.
- Project proposals that include a vision of sustainable system strengthening in bridging the gap in accessibility and availability of immunization services to underserved communities will have advantage.
Eligibility Criteria
- CSO must:
- be registered in Bosnia and Herzegovina
- not be an entity named on any of the UN Security Council targeted sanction lists.
Ineligible
- CSO submission which:
- are not submitted before the specified deadline;
- do not include all required documents duly completed and signed or do not comply with specifications set in this Call for Expression of Interest;
- are not submitted in English;
- will be excluded from the selection process.
For more information, visit UNICEF.