Vaccination campaign against Polio in Luanda

Here again comes the time for the annual Campaign against Polio in Angola. Angolan government, Ngos, International schools, expats, everybody is called for help in giving the two magic drops of the vaccination directly in the mouth of children age between 0 and 5 years old.

"In these last 14 months - as an Africare official told us - there have been no new cases of the disease in the Country". 

That's a good news, but the campaign goes on even this year in order to prevent any new case and, as last year, the Luanda International School has been part of this campaign with more than 50 students, almost 10 teachers and a number of parents. 

The Lis group of people has been sent in Rangel, a huge area in Luanda, where more than 38.000 people live in precarious living conditions without electricity, water, roads, stuck in a mountain of mud given the tropical rains of this last few weeks. 

The guys have been walking in the street, knocking at the doors, asking to the people about the presence of children and after a while "they were coming to us" said a Lis student involved in the campaign. At the end of the day 800 children have been vaccinated as a matter of a touchable success. 

The aim of this campaign held by the WHO (World Health Organization), Africare and African Governments is the eradication of Polio in Africa. 

Here's the video of the Polio Vaccination Day in Luanda with Africare shot by Margriet Faber.
Polio Vaccination Day Lis-Africare in Luanda (2012)

Luanda solidarity

It happens sometimes that a group of people, no matter their skin color, their religion, their nationality, gather together around a wish: I want to do something for the others!

Well it happened a couple of days ago, when these people, americans, english, africans, italians, …, went all together in a "barrio" in south Luanda where some 500 people, mostly children, in their best clothes, were waiting their arrival in church, praying and singing and dancing.

Once there, this nice and colourful group of people, did a Christmas exibition, with their children pretending to be Maria and Giuseppe and a number of angels. Then they gave to the local children a present each and they distributed fruits to the others, there was no room in the church for the incredible amount of locals gathered around the church.

It happens that even if a simple wish couldn't change the world, can give some unfogettable two hours of solidarity and communion between people.