Feature

BYLC Swine Flu Awareness Campaign

Ryan Nabil

Swine flu poses a potentially epidemic threat to Bangladesh as the country is densely populated. Outbreak of this disease in our country can spread very quickly, particularly in the slum area. At Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center (BYLC), we recognised this problem and brainstormed for an effective idea to make people aware of this disease and its symptoms, treatment and precaution. Since all the educational institutions in Dhaka was closed for Eid and most of the people had already left Dhaka for Eid, we struggled for ideas, but then it hit us that we should run the campaign at the most busiest places of Dhaka, that is the Sayedabad Bus Station and Kamlapur Railway Station right before Eid.

We formed the swine flu awareness campaign core committee and prepared 10,000 leaflets to be distributed in two phases. Later we went to the Sayedabad Bus Station early in the morning and four of us started distributing the leaflets and spoke to the commuters about swine flu. We had to make use of one of the techniques we were taught at Building Bridges through Leadership Training (BBLT) programme at BYLC, communicate with the people in such a way so that they listen to us and thereby make our interventions effective. When we handed people the leaflets, we asked them if they had heard about swine flu and told them about the information contained in the leaflet. We requested them to keep the leaflet since it contained the symptoms of the swine flu and the guidance on preventive measures and treatment for swine flu.

At Sayedabad Bus Station, we found that leaflets were being distributed with government's initiative as well. The leaflet of the government was colorful with picture and less informative whereas ours was less colorful and more informative. We met quite a lot of onlookers interested about the activities of BYLC, one of who turned out to be a plain-clothed detective. He took plentiful of our leaflet to show others and to distribute them later on.

In our small campaign, what surprised and appealed to us the most is the responsiveness of people. Many people came to us themselves to get to know more about swine flu while many were interested to know about us and the activities of BYLC. Particularly when people got to know that we were not getting paid for our voluntary works they were especially cooperative. Three people at the two stations who had never known us before joined us in handing the leaflets. Talking to a lot of people about swine flu and distributing so many leaflets was not a piece of cake for only four people-the newspaper stand people and the hawkers were quite cooperative when they heard about it. They placed our leaflets in their newspapers and books and also kept them in newspaper stand so that anybody interested in knowing about this disease could take a leaflet. Even many bus conductors and drivers handed out the leaflets to the passengers of their respective buses, despite the heavy rush of Eid.

At the end of the day, we found that we had distributed five thousand leaflets and the campaign was a success due to the response we got from the recipients.