The Ministry of Health had to get in touch with all parents, guardians, and relatives of children between the ages of 0 and 7, and let them know about the nationwide vaccination campaign against polio. The communication should reach everyone, even those living in remote areas with no access to traditional media.In its vaccination campaigns, the Ministry of Health has to reach all groups of people, independently of their social condition or geographical location. The National Health Ministry needed to find a way to let all Brazilians know about its massive polio vaccination campaign which aimed at keeping the country free of polio, a disease that was eradicated years ago.Health agents travel in all of the Amazon region, ministering injections to the people living on the rivers and in the jungle. But it is greatly difficult to let the population know when those boats will be coming by.

Since the people who live on the rivers have no access whatsoever to traditional media, we had to find a way to solve that problem.

We studied the region and set up an information chain through the amateur radio networks in the region, including CIMI – Conselho Indianista Missionário (Missionary Council for Indians), non-profit organizations linked with the Catholic Church, FUNAI, Xapuri (Acre) Amateur Radio Communication Network, plus the Brazilian Marines who guard the coast of the Amazon region.All those lines and transmission channels are extremely important and have a strong influence on local communities. They made it possible for our message to reach the people living on the river banks and in the jungle.The whole communication network was activated by an official document sent by the Health Ministry, containing all the information that was to be conveyed to local communities.That idea is now used in all of the Ministry’s efforts because it proved to be efficient in reaching remote areas. The media team was responsible for making the whole idea feasible. The problem here was to find a communication solution to reach the population living in the Amazon region having little or almost no access to traditional communication media. Thanks to various networks of amateur radios spread throughout the northern part of the country those people - who live on the river banks in that area – had access to the information on the Ministry of Health’s children vaccination campaign.In a globalized world like the one we live in, it is hard to imagine that it is still crucial to make use of such old-fashioned ways to communicate with people, and that it indeed is the great idea lies: communicating no matter how. This is why the idea deserves such recognition.

The media team was responsible for making the whole idea feasible.