In India, the COVID-19 vaccination rollout began on January 16, 2021. As of August 15, 2021, only 38% (a little more than 42 crore) people received their first dose and 10.9% (about 12 crore) received their second one. The vaccination programme created a huge disparity between people from different geographical, gender and socio-economic profiles. Swasti’s partnership with Give India decided to address this issue.

Vulnerable communities who need the vaccines the most, were not getting vaccinated and slipping through the cracks of vaccination drives. Delay in vaccinating the vulnerable (female sex workers, transgender people, people living with HIV, migrants, street vendors, construction workers, daily wage and domestic workers) could lead to them falling sick and being pushed into further poverty.

Not only are they vulnerable to severe illnesses, they are also least likely to be able to afford life-saving, medical interventions.  Without accelerated vaccination the pandemic will not be defeated and the vaccination process may keep rolling for years to come. Our partnership was aimed at organising vaccination drives for lakhs of people from vulnerable people, who face barriers to health access and are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. 

Our goal was to reach 2.25 lakh people. Between September 2021 and March 2022, our partnership resulted in a little over 2.28 lakh vulnerable people getting vaccinated. Together, we reached 101.32 % of the target we had set for ourselves.