The Logic of Hope and Trust

Concept: Rina Dey, CORE GROUP POLIO PROJECT

"For our mobilisers this became a personal fight, protecting babies from the dreaded virus, pleading with parents to let them get immunised, facing irate communities, braving extreme weather conditions but never giving up. All this and more is captured in the pages ahead - a testimony to their grit, perseverance and determination to fight to the end." - Dr. Roma Solomon

This book provides a compilation of the experiences of social mobilisers taking part in the CORE Group Polio Project (CGPP), which contributed to India's being officially declared polio free on March 27 2014. The CGPP-India operates in 12 high-risk areas (HRAs) in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) state, reaching an estimated 600,000 children under 5 through a network of approximately 1,300 social mobilisers ("SM Net"). By sharing individually some of their colourful artwork (e.g., posters with drawings) and vignettes (e.g., poems), the book tells the story of these frontline workers as they embarked on and eventually completed "a seemingly impossible journey that continued to strive against heavy, often cruel odds to achieve their singular objective." There are also photographs included, such as that of a monument comprised of a large mother/child sculpture surrounded by the slogan "2 drops of life" and a "polio vial" sitting on a base with 4 panels describing the history of the polio effort in India, an acknowledgement of partners, and other key messages including the eradication strategy.

As is explained here, a CORE Secretariat was established in India in 1999 to coordinate activities at the national and community level in collaboration with several organisations partnering toward global polio eradication. In 2003, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and CORE started working together as SM Net, working at the community, block, and district levels with private voluntary organisations (PVOs) which in turn work with grassroot non-governmental organisations (NGOs)/community-based organisations (CBOs). The SM Net relies solely on the continuous effort of mobilisers in influencing behaviour, building networks and partnerships at the local level, and motivating people for polio and routine immunisation (RI). Trained mobilisers establish proactive community dialogues on information about vaccination and dealing with resistant families and influential people. "All the mobilisers at various levels were armed with good communication skills, materials and mentoring support. In the journey of changing behavior from negative to positive for immunisation, their efforts transformed them into assertive and confident workers."

Rina Dey reflects on "the journey of developing the book", saying that "[a] peoples program of such vintage and magnitude is bound to generate many human interest stories which deserve to be shared. Thus the idea of 'Anubhav Haat' (the experiences bazaar) came into being. The field staff were asked to share individual field experiences or any memorable incidence that changed their or someone's life in the context of polio through a creative way such as story, poem etc. More than 1200 artworks were received and the most compelling ones were compiled and printed in a book called 'The Logic of Hope & Trust'. Since most of the stories and poems are in Hindi the designing is done in a manner that the English & Hindi write ups can be read at the same time. This book presents classic tale of victory over polio eradication through unique art work of energetic workers spread through the Indian hinterland. This is their story."

Click here for the 106-page book in PDF format.