Today is the official start of World Immunizations Week created by the World Health Organization; an opportunity to bring awareness to the benefits of children receiving immunizations and vaccinations worldwide.
Yesterday I introduced you to the United Nations Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign and Shot@Life Champion Cindy Levin. Today, she’d like to share with you how she became involved with Shot@Life, and how you easy it is for you to get involved as well!
How did you hear about Shot@Life, and what inspired you to get involved?
Shot@Life had asked RESULTS – a grassroots advocacy organization that I work for 1/2 time and volunteer for as well – for recommendations of individuals to help make up the 40-50 original Shot@Life champions for the campaign launch. RESULTS recommended me as a candidate because of my years of advocacy work on global health issues – including vaccines to reduce preventable childhood deaths – and because I am a mom of young children take joy from involving my kids in my advocacy and charity work.
I don’t have a medical background. In fact, my professional background is in mechanical engineering, although I currently am a stay-at-home mom working 1/2 time for RESULTS as a fundraising coach. RESULTS has taught me quite a bit over the years about global health issues like child mortality, AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, so that I can be an effective citizen advocate to lobby my own members of Congress.
What is your current role with Shot@Life and what does this role call for you to do?
I am a Shot@Life champion, but because I’m in my second year with Shot@Life, I help coach new Shot@Life champions in some aspect of their activities.
Usually, I’m coaching and encouraging them in advocacy as that is my specialty, but I also help advise and support them in fundraising efforts and public speaking. I also write blogs, talk to my members of Congress about global vaccines, fundraise, generate media in newspapers, and create public awareness events.
My favorite awareness event that I did with my fellow champion, Jen DeFranco, was an Oscar party where moms and daughters dressed up in formal gowns and fancy princess costumes to walk a red carpet. We had a professional photographer take our pictures with signs saying what we wanted to give kids a shot at in life.
Did you choose to travel to Uganda, or were you sent there by Shot@Life?
Both! It was a great opportunity they presented to me. I received an email from our director, Devi Thomas, inviting me to participate in an observation trip to see child health programs in Uganda run by UNICEF.
I’d been trying for years to find a way to go to a developing nation in Africa to see some of the programs I lobby for daily, so I was excited to go. This trip had everything I could have wanted
- meeting real mothers and talk to them about their experiences
- visiting primary schools and worship services to experience Ugandan culture and talk to children
- speaking to many UNICEF employees at several levels from frontline health care workers to leadership in the national office
- meeting with the Ugandan UN Secretary
It was inspiring to see our foreign aid programs working so well. Uganda is a developing nation that is on track to meet it’s goals of reducing child mortality. I met mothers and fathers who are thrilled to have service like vaccines brought to them in remote, rural areas of Uganda.
They have so many challenges in life trying to get access to things we take for granted – like clean water, school for children, and regular meals – that it is a relief to them to have vaccines provided to them. The mothers we met know that these vaccines save their babies’ lives and leads to healthier communities. Just a tiny bit of our nation’s help goes such a long way in the places we visited to literally save lives.
Were there any families or stories from Uganda that stuck with you?
I think a lot about a young mother I met because, to me, she embodies who I am helping through Shot@Life.
Eighteen-year-old Samina lives in the rural district of Mubende in central Uganda. We met at a Family Health Day hosted by her mosque. She was dressed in her best headscarf and proud to be at the Eid celebration with her only child, one-year-old Shamira, who got her first immunizations that day.
It’s difficult for Samina to travel to a hospital, but the UNICEF Family Health Day program brought life-saving services to her and many other Ugandans living in poverty. She was very proud and very happy to be able to get Shamira her vaccines. Her love for her daughter showed in her every move. Samina and I live 8000 miles apart, but we’re both mothers dedicated to giving our young daughters the best start in life we can give them.
What milestones did you experience with Shot@Life during their first year?
There have been many, but I’ll share my top 3:
1) Definitely going to Uganda was a milestone for me. Despite having been an anti-poverty advocate, I had never traveled to visit people in extreme poverty in person before.
2) I helped coach many champions through their first meetings with Congress in Washington D.C. I never tire of seeing the elation in people’s eyes after their first lobby visit. They feel so empowered and delighted that they can go into a senate office and have the power to change world events.
3) I helped my own children achieve literal milestones with Shot@Life when we all ran races at the Disney Princess 1/2 marathon weekend. While have been a long distance runner, my girls had never run races before. So, we all ran races of different lengths to inspire donations to Shot@Life. My 9 year old ran her first 5K, my 7 year old ran a 1/4 mile, and I ran the 1/2 marathon. My husband was our support crew, so it was a real family effort. We raised enough money to vaccinate 107 children against measles, polio, rotavirus, and pneumococcal virus.
Why do YOU think vaccinations are so important both here in the States and in other countries?
Vaccinations are what stand between our children and massive senseless deaths. Most people alive today have no concept of what horrors measles and polio caused in our country’s past which still plague other countries. Our society tends not to think about diarrhea from rotavirus as fatal, but in areas without clean water, it can be a death sentence.
Twenty thousand children are dying from treatable and preventable diseases every day.
Simple, cost effective immunizations can protect millions of children from suffering painful deaths and prevent the grief of mothers mourning the loss of their little ones.
When I say “our” children, I do mean the global “our” as I feel that in this globally connected age, we are all responsible for children in need everywhere in the world. But in the instance of polio especially, I do mean our children and grandchildren here in the United States, too.
Polio is a terrifying disease and quite contagious. Even though we see little of it here, polio anywhere is a threat everywhere. We are 99% of the way to eradicating it from our planet. (Did you know that we’ve only successfully rid our world of one other disease, which is smallpox?)
Vaccines are the only way to eliminate polio so that it never threatens humankind again. Letting up on it could mean a resurgence, which no one is prepared to encounter again.
If there was one message about global vaccines you could relay to the average American sitting at home, what would it be?
YOU have the power to save hundreds and thousands of lives…even from sitting right there in your home.
In our world, a child dies every 20 seconds from a treatable or preventable disease. But, working together, we can SAVE a life every 20 seconds by mobilizing everyday people to raise money for global vaccines and to tell their elected officials to support exceptional vaccine providers like UNICEF and the GAVI Alliance. You can start by saving one child right now by joining us at www.shotatlife.org .
You could even donate $20 today to save just one child from four deadly diseases. That might even lead you to host an awareness event or even apply to become a champion like me and save hundreds of kids in a year.
It’s going to take a lot of us and everyone is invited to join this party!
Happy 1st Birthday Shot@Life!
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To find our more about Shot@Life and how you can get involved, click below!
*My interview with Shot@Life Cindy Levin was not compensated. It was an opportunity I signed up for to bring you this information!
