The Geneva Learning Foundation

In this video, we show you how to request your personalized application and how to complete it to join the Mouvement for Immunization Agenda 2030.

We also explain why you are being asked all these questions and how your answers will help your in-country colleagues and international partners.

WHAT IS THE MOVEMENT FOR IMMUNIZATION AGENDA 2030?

"I can tell you that this experience has changed my life. It changed my practice and made me think differently about how I work, considering things I hadn't thought about before."

There is strength in numbers. On March 7, 2022, immunization professionals from around the world will come together to launch a Movement to achieve the goals of Immunization Agenda 2030.

Learn how this Movement can help you make a difference in your daily work to sustain routine immunization during the pandemic, overcome vaccine hesitancy by building caregiver and community confidence in vaccination, and reach children who are not yet protected from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Immunization Agenda 2030 is the world's strategy for the entire decade. On March 7, 2022, we will launch the first IA2030 Learning Cycle. Each participant will use the Idea Engine, develop a situational analysis, and then plan actions and implement them in the Impact Accelerator.

For all of these activities, you will work on a challenge of your choice, one that can make a difference for people and for your country.

This will also be an opportunity to make your voice heard: We have initiated dialogue with IA2030 working groups created by WHO, UNICEF, Gavi and other international partners, who want to listen and better support immunization staff in countries.

Learn more and join the Movement:

https://www.learning.foundation/immunization-agenda-2030

IMMUNIZATION AGENDA 2030:

Leveraging the global response to COVID-19 to strengthen health systems and build back better

Apply now to join the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030

https://www.learning.foundation/immunization-agenda-2030

Charlotte Mbuh from The Geneva Learning Foundation took the floor in today's United Nations General Assembly side event dedicated to Immunization Agenda 2030.

Here is the full text of her message.

I worked for ten years in Ebolowa, South Region of Cameroon, in my country’s immunization programme. When the pandemic hit, I joined more than 6,000 fellow immunization professionals to create the COVID-19 Peer Hub. Most of us were from Asian and African countries, working in health facilities and districts. We pledged to support each other. In the first 10 days, we shared over 1,200 ideas and practices that were helping us face the consequences of the pandemic.

Building on each other’s successes, lessons learned, and challenges, we have worked ever since to turn these ideas into practice, results, and ultimately impact.

By the end of 2020, one third of participants had already implemented and documented tangible improvements to support the recovery of immunization services.

Let me tell you about my colleague, Dr Franck Monga, a District Medical Officer in Lubumbashi, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Using only locally-available resources, Franck set up a system to reduce missed opportunities for routine immunization, a dashboard to track vaccination sessions, and regular follow-up with the community to find zero dose children.

Franck did this using ideas and feedback from peers in neighboring Nigeria and Cameroon but also from Pakistan and Indonesia. His motivation and effort turned around the district’s performance, strengthening resilience for when the pandemic hit.

We realized that we had the means to directly reach, engage, and connect with other professionals working where immunization and other health targets are either achieved or not. In the face of the unknown, we learned to trust and rely on each other, across barriers of geography, roles, gender, and health system levels. We realized that what we know about our challenges, no one else knows.

That is why the IA2030 principles that we have heard about today are so important – particularly leadership by people who deliver vaccines and genuine collaboration across subnational, national, regional and global levels.

Yes, our mission remains to carry out our ministry’s plan. But to do so requires us to deploy not only new skills, but also new kinds of leadership, to exercise critical thinking, to adapt and tailor our action hand in hand with the communities we serve.

Our innovation is local. It is not about big technology solutions, but about small, significant improvements. Our solutions may seem mundane, but they are the ones that actually helped us to keep vaccination going in the face of the pandemic.

Being connected to one another, engaging directly in two-way dialogue with global experts, is transforming our own mindset. We see immunization as an entry point, a marker of equity of all health services and for primary health care.

Yes, immunization staff the world over – and the societies we live in – are still reeling from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But now is not the time to buckle or falter. Immunization Agenda 2030 gives a common goal and encourages us to lead the change needed to get there. In this time of global crisis, thinking and acting strategically can help each of us stay focused on the global immunization goals, keeping us on the path to equitable immunization coverage for everyone. Focus could make the difference between short-term Pyrrhic recovery and building back better.

When we vaccinate to protect from disease and death, it is an expression of the deep love we feel for the health of the families and communities we serve. It is because we care that we are ready to take up the challenge of Immunization Agenda 2030. In April 2021, over 5,000 of us gathered to explore how we can a new kind of movement to ensure that immunization remains high on global and regional health agendas in support of countries. My question to global leaders: will you support health professionals who ‘opt in’ to go above and beyond what their job description says, who are willing to take risks to make a difference?

Learn more

https://www.learning.foundation/immunization-challenges

Watch this information briefing to discover three new opportunities for immunization and other Primary Health Care staff.

1. Join the Movement for Immunization Agenda 2030

"I can tell you that this experience has changed my life. It changed my practice and made me think differently about how I work, considering things I hadn't thought about before."

There is strength in numbers. On March 7, 2022, immunization professionals from around the world will come together to launch a Movement to achieve the goals of Immunization Agenda 2030.

Learn how this Movement can help you make a difference in your daily work to sustain routine immunization during the pandemic, overcome vaccine hesitancy by building caregiver and community confidence in vaccination, and reach children who are not yet protected from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Immunization Agenda 2030 is the world's strategy for the entire decade. On March 7, 2022, we will launch the first IA2030 Learning Cycle. Each participant will use the Idea Engine, develop a situational analysis, and then plan actions and implement them in the Impact Accelerator.

For all of these activities, you will work on a challenge of your choice, one that can make a difference for people and for your country.

This will also be an opportunity to make your voice heard: We have initiated dialogue with IA2030 working groups created by WHO, UNICEF, Gavi and other international partners, who want to listen and better support immunization staff in countries.

Learn more and join the Movement:

https://www.learning.foundation/immunization-agenda-2030

2. 5th edition of Teach to Reach: Connect

This is the only quarterly networking event for health professionals.

Meet, network, and share your experience with immunization colleagues from around the world.

What motivates us to continue/maintain vaccination during the epidemic? Why do we get up every morning, even under extremely difficult conditions, to serve the health needs of the population? That's the question of motivation. Join Teach to Reach on March 4, 2022 to share your experience and learn from success stories, lessons from the field, and the challenges you face.

Learn more and request your invitation:

https://www.learning.foundation/teachtoreach

3. Women Who Deliver Vaccines on 4 March 2022

We work in health facilities, districts, regions, and on the core team.

We are nurses, doctors, community health workers.

Some of us are involved in our country's decisions at the highest level.

Others do the day-to-day immunization work that makes the difference between children, families and communities being protected from disease - or not.

Wherever we work, whatever our rank or status, we are women of immunization.

Learn more and request your invitation:

https://www.learning.foundation/iwd-fr

Join us for a Lightning Chat with Dr Kate O’Brien, Director of Immunization at the World Health Organization (WHO).

We will discuss the significance of insights and learning from the expertise and practice of staff working in health facilities and districts. Should global partners pay more attention, listen more intently… and, if so, how?

Learn more about TGLF’s Insights

https://www.learning.foundation/insights

“The lessons and learning are coming from people who are working in the community. That is where vaccination actually happens. We need to be focusing on the most local level of the immunization programme.” – Kate O'Brien, Director of the Department of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals (IVB), World Health Organization (WHO)

Watch the Teach to Reach interview with Kate O’Brien

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvv-g0lXy4c

WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?

We need fresh insights to support those leading change in districts, health facilities, and communities.

As a global community, we recognize the significance of local action to achieve the global goals.

WHY IS THE GENEVA LEARNING FOUNDATION SHARING INSIGHTS?

The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) hosts the largest and fastest-growing community of national and sub-national immunization professionals, with over 40,000 active participants from over 120 countries, as of May 2021. 80% of members are sub-national immunization staff, with strong support and linkage to national teams.

We realized that the valuable multi-country knowledge shared in our programmes should be regularly given back to the community, and that it could also inform our partners in identifying real-time priorities and opportunities and formulating strategies.

The Insights Unit is the Foundation’s research and analysis group. We systematically consolidate and communicate the contributions of learners in the Foundation’s programmes to share back to participants, governments, civil society and development partners.

To synthesize and spread insights, we work in partnership with Bridges to Development, the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and other partners.

Learn more:

https://www.learning.foundation/insights

Today, meet the Organizing Committee that is preparing the Special Event dedicated to honoring Women Who Deliver Vaccines.

The Committee representing women who deliver vaccines from 38 countries was formed by 143 Alumnae of the Geneva Learning Foundation's immunization program on January 28, 2022, during the inaugural preparatory global meeting.

On 4 March 2022, you are invited to join us to listen to, learn from, and honor women who continue to work tirelessly to:

* maintain immunization services within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic,

* scale up COVID-19 vaccination, and

* pursue efforts to reach the 20 million children who remain at risk from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Learn more:

https://www.learning.foundation/iwd

Join us to hear how Hameedat Abdussalaman, an Obstetrician-gynecologist from Nigeria, is taking actions to prevent, diagnose, and treat Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) where she works and what difference she is making for the health and wellbeing of women and girls in her community.

Hameedat Abdussalaman is an alumna from the Scholar Level 1 Workshop on FGS and the FGS Impact Accelerator Launchpad programme offered by the Geneva Learning Foundation in partnership with Bridges to Development and the FGS Accelerated Scale Together (FAST) package.

Learn more about FGS:

https://www.learning.foundation/fgs

Jane Rebecca Oluoch from Kenya was one of 775 Alumni of the Geneva Learning Foundation’s immunization programme who joined the first Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) Impact Accelerator on 8 November 2021.

The Accelerator is a new digital health system in which peers support each other across levels of the health system and geographic borders to turn action plans into specific actions, results, and – ultimately – document impact.

At the Teach to Reach: Connect 4 event on 10 December, Jane shared the specifics of what she did in her local context – and what she discovered as she worked with peers from all over the world.

“One of our actions was to meet our county PHN (Public health nurse) Coordinator for the immunization program. And I managed to meet her. We talked and planned on how to do action days. That was one.

The next thing was to meet our CHVs, that is community health assistants attached to our health facility, which is Bondo sub county hospital so that we could talk and hear from them because they're the link to the people at the community level. We wanted to get from them; what are the challenges, what are the best practices we can do to improve immunization services in our facility.

When we managed to meet the community health assistants, one of the challenges that they had was illiteracy among the women of reproductive age that are coming for immunization services. And on that point, we started doing health talks, and also through the CHVs again, they've been empowered, they've been trained on various health information activities.

So we are using them to link people at the community level. When they go to the community from house to house they should tackle each and every woman's challenge, depending on what the woman will present with.

Another thing. We managed to have a community dialogue, which took place in one of the villages in the community, which is Obedi village where we managed to meet the community members. We shared with them. We told them the importance of immunisation, they shared their fears and the majority of the women that came were very impressed.

Also, on the dialogue day we carried with us some COVID and HPV vaccines and the women that were present were very happy and we managed to immunize some of the girls with the HPV vaccine and those who had not gotten a chance to reach the facility for the COVID vaccinations also got the chance to be vaccinated.”

Request your invitation to join Teach to Reach: Connect, a unique quarterly event to meet, network, and learn with fellow immunization professionals from all over the world

https://www.learning.foundation/teachtoreach

Amel Eltaher was one of 775 Alumni of the Geneva Learning Foundation’s immunization programme who joined the first Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) Impact Accelerator on 8 November 2021.

The Accelerator is a new digital health system in which peers support each other to turn action plans into specific actions, results, and – ultimately – documented impact.

At the Teach to Reach: Connect 4 event on 10 December, Amel Eltaher shared the specifics of what she did in her local context – and what she discovered as she worked with peers from all over the world.

“My name is Amel Eltaher and I'm from Sudan. My last experience was in Pakistan where I worked for over six years with WHO as EPI/PAI Technical Officer.

During [the first IA2030 Impact Accelerator], we were targeting the frontline workers who were going house to house during polio campaigns. So one of my activities was that I had to review with my colleagues in Koita district the criteria for the selection of healthcare workers. They had set up some of the criteria to select like; they had to be a female, the lady had to be a local, knowing the area and non government.

So, as I looked into those criteria, I found out that some of these criteria cannot work in certain areas like the hard to reach areas. So here a female could go with her husband or brother because the area is hard. She may also need to sit on a motorcycle and so on, so they can go from house to house without having any difficulties.

The other thing also in certain areas, I found out having one female cannot work because some of those females whom I met feel insecure going house to house especially in those areas, where they have some concerns like religious refusal and people having some misconceptions about vaccines.

So also during that exercise, I found out that having to go house to house made them feel more skilled, so they can easily go and vaccinate every child.

For me, I consider this [Impact Accelerator] to be one of the best exercises I have ever done and I also am always honored and thankful to the Geneva Learning Foundation for giving us such opportunities.

And one of the good things I say is that if we could continue having such discussions with colleagues, and listening to the expertise so we can keep improving ourselves and also keep immunization going.”

Request your invitation to join Teach to Reach: Connect, a unique quarterly event to meet, network, and learn with fellow immunization professionals from all over the world

https://www.learning.foundation/teachtoreach

Jenny Sequeira, a global health consultant with over two decades of public health experience, joined the Geneva Learning Foundation’s Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) Impact Accelerator on 8 November. Working with Charlotte Mbuh, she met with participants once a week for an IA2030 Hackathon, each time exploring a specific challenge being faced by one individual. Her role was startlingly different from that of a conventional technical advisor prescribing top-down solutions: she listened, facilitated the discussion, and gave feedback.

Listen to Accelerator participants problem-solve an immunization challenge in the ITCH Hackathon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naKk6v2RD9U&t=0s

On 10 December 2021, at the Commencement Event for this first Accelerator, we asked her to share her reflections about this experience.

“I have just been so very impressed by everyone in this whole IA2030 Impact Accelerator Launch Pad.

You know, when you look at intrinsic motivation, there are often three factors that are cited for what keeps people going: autonomy, mastery and purpose.

And I think when we look at this team, that 700 plus people who joined the sessions, the General Assembly sessions and the hackathons, I saw people who were really sharing specific, smart ideas, going into the micro steps, not staying at the general level, where it's more of the standards and guidance; but going deeper and deeper into, this is what I did. This is what worked, this is what didn't work.

And I think at the end of the day, it's this type of very specific feedback that can help other people in other countries or even in the same country, going through similar things.

So like Dr. Folake was saying, you know, what matters is what do you do afterwards? What are the next steps? And I would like to challenge all of you, graduates. Thank you, this is an amazing, amazing experience. But what's next, we know that we're still in challenging, challenging times.

And I just encourage everyone to stay motivated, and you have a network of peers around the world, who are holding you up. So thank you, again, it was a pleasure to work with you. And I look forward to ongoing discussions.”

Request your invitation to join Teach to Reach: Connect, a unique quarterly event to meet, network, and learn with fellow immunization professionals from all over the world

https://www.learning.foundation/teachtoreach

Commencement Address by Dr Folake Olayinka, Chair of the Working Group for Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030) Strategic Priority 1 (Universal Health Coverage and Primary Health Care), delivered at the Commencement Ceremony for the 1st IA2030 Impact Accelerator, at the Teach to Reach: Connect 4 event.

View the summary of process and outcomes from the 1st IA2030 Impact Accelerator

https://youtu.be/sXtKwoMY8pM

View the full Commencement Ceremony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFoTI60m2vg

Request your invitation to the next quarterly Teach to Reach: Connect event

https://www.learning.foundation/teachtoreach

It is an honor to deliver the Commencement Address for this Scholars group and the class of 755 alumni of previous courses is incredible.

I understand this is not a course but a new methodology in which participants support each other to understand issues, formulate action plans, dissect the underlying issue issues and implement their action plans, sharing successes and lessons learned, as well as challenges and turning knowledge into action.

This is exactly the type of innovative approaches that we need to overcome the complex challenges were faced with in global health, particularly with the effects both primary and secondary effects of the COVID 19 pandemic, on health systems, essential services, and immunization in particular.

This graduating class has met many important milestones in order to complete this program.

As I have learned from Reda, you’ve participated in global assemblies on a weekly basis.

You’ve set specific goals of what you’d like to achieve and develop action plans, and also made a pledge which Charlotte so beautifully read just a few moments ago.

I hope you found it inspiring to you all, I say well done.

But that was the easy part.

Now, the real test will be in your day to day activities and work environment, the communities of influence that you have the engagements you have to improve immunization outcomes, whether you are a policymaker, a policy implementer, or any level that you are working in the real tests is how you make a difference.

You have to make a difference.

Use your knowledge and skills tools to remove those barriers that communities face in accessing and using immunization services, essential health services as well.

A very good friend of mine told me recently, we are the leaders we are waiting for.

And I say to you, the graduates, all 755 of you, that you are the leaders we are waiting for.

One of the most memorable moments in my career as a global health practitioner at many different levels, has been in communities with families, particularly mothers and children.

And every single mother I have met, every single one of them has wanted a better outcome for their children and their families: better health, better education, better access to opportunities to develop and conjugates.

Every single one of them.

Today marks a milestone in your graduation from the Scholars Program.

But I hope it marks another milestone to be a change maker.

So as you graduate from this program, I like to give you the following charge.

Congratulations to you all.

Go forth.

Take action and be the change.

Thank you and congratulations to you.

Thank you for the opportunity to share this graduation with you all.