Project description:

In 2022, India was again battling with the new variants of Coronavirus. Every day more than 200,000 people were testing positive for the virus.

India’s crippled healthcare was trying its best to get the country back on track with a massive vaccination drive from urban to rural areas and many states in the country had already imposed restrictions to avoid further spread of the infection. India was struggling to vaccinate people throughout the country. This rollout would have been impossible without the healthcare workers who traversed hills and mountains to reach every home, making vaccination shots available to the population.

Impact reached:

The project gave awareness to thousands of India about the importance of vaccination to fight the deadly coronavirus. It highlighted the motivation of the nurses who were trekking mountains without proper facilities to make sure that vaccine reaches every home. In India, which hosts 1,413,347,820, it was difficult to vaccinate such a huge number but the project showed how it all was done even in the remotest places of the country.

Techniques/technologies used:

We used drone cameras while filming and animation to make it easy to show data of the project. Drone cameras were used despite very bad weather in the hills in Kashmir region. And animation was added later in the post-production of the project.

Context about the project:

The journalism in Kashmir region has been in crisis after 2019 — when India scrapped its autonomy. Since then journalists have been intimidated and censored more than ever. And during such time a lot of stories disappear infront of the journalists.

Bhat Burhan filmed this story in a remote village in Kashmir where temprature had gone below zero degrees. While filming heavy snow storm came but it could not stop me or the healthcare workers. I and the nurses travelled from a local healthcare facility in a small van for hours to reach a remote village that was to be vaccinated. We had no gears to climb the hills but we somehow managed and completed our job.

What can other journalists learn from this project?

This is a reminder to journalists that we have to reach every corner of the world to get out the stories that are often unheard.

Project links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLwM9neSL20&t=241s

https://www.insider.com/nurses-vaccinate-kashmir-villages-india-covid-2022-2