In May 2024, we launched the World Meningitis Day 2024 Advocacy Fund pilot scheme. The Fund will support CoMO members to mark this international health awareness day, which takes place every year on 5th October.
CoMO members are united in their desire for a world free of meningitis, and they all advocate for change by influencing decision-makers, stakeholders and relevant audiences in their communities. To bolster this activity further, the Advocacy Fund will support innovative projects with the potential to deliver especially high impact and change.
We are delighted to be backing six of our members who are now engaged in a very varied set of advocacy projects. Read on to learn more about them and their plans.
Concern Health Education Project (CHEP) is a health advocacy NGO (non-governmental organisation) created in 2004. CHEP now works with over 500 target groups across Ghana to raise awareness of hepatitis B, meningitis and TB.
As part of CHEP’s Meningitis Today project, they will launch a national expert committee on meningitis composed of public health experts, NGO representatives and survivors of meningitis or people affected by the disease. They will then promote World Meningitis Day on traditional media (TV and radio) and social media to present a call-to-action statement on meningitis. The project will also include a community campaign to raise public awareness and empower communities to share stories about the lived experiences of survivors and caregivers.
Throughout, they plan to advocate for the WHO Road Map to Defeat Meningitis by 2030 while assessing Ghana’s current level of implementation. They also intend to use their communication activities to counter common misconceptions around vaccines and the after-effects of meningitis.
CEO, Isaac Ampomah, said: “We have been an active member of the global coalition to defeat meningitis by 2030 as set out in WHO’s Global Road map; and we have been part of the national effort to support communities using vaccine-preventable disease programmes in Ghana. This funding will allow us to expand our work further.”
John B. Grimes is a meningitis survivor, podcaster, writer and Friend of CoMO from Texas, USA. He is also currently a member of CoMO’s voluntary Advisory Council (read more about his background here).
John’s project, Shots 4 Meningitis, represents a bold step forward in his commitment to meningitis advocacy. The initiative will leverage the power of stories, community engagement and media outreach.
The project will centre around an in-person event at a Top Golf venue in Texas, where John and a team of volunteers will distribute educational brochures and survivor’s story cards, as well as ensuring World Meningitis Day itself is in the limelight. They have also engaged a public relations expert to target local, regional, and national media outlets to promote the event, share meningitis stories, and secure extensive media coverage.
John will use paid local radio adverts and a special episode of his podcast, Destiny Is Debatable, to spread the word about what they are doing.
John said: “With our project, we aim to amplify our advocacy efforts, reaching new audiences and educating the public on a larger scale than ever before. The support from the Advocacy Fund will enable us to execute innovative strategies and collaborate with key partners to ensure that our message resonates widely.”
Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire is a scientific research organisation, within which the meningitis research group is led by Dr. Kanny Diallo. They investigate meningitis-causing bacteria to help improve prevention, as well as using communication campaigns to raise awareness.
Their project is entitled Dialogues to defeat Meningitis: from community to policy makers and has two main strands.
The organisation has already produced a seven-part story centred around a young meningitis survivor named Kolo with a love of basketball, available in French and English as both a comic strip and an animated cartoon. The cartoon will be featured on television and social media and projected for a group of schoolchildren and parents.
They will also hold a high-level panel discussion featuring representatives from disability associations, NGOs and government ministries, aiming to reach all the relevant political and social leaders of Côte d’Ivoire.
Dr. Diallo said: “Our previous work has shown that there is limited knowledge of the disease in the communities most affected within the African meningitis belt, in the north of Côte d’Ivoire. There was also limited knowledge of the national meningitis surveillance system from health practitioners reducing their engagement with it, and no meningitis-specific resources for health communication. Finally, we found that there was no follow-up for survivors and therefore very little information on their potential sequalae or systematic support for them or their families.
We want to use World Meningitis Day 2024 to shine a light onto these issues and ask leaders for more support for this cause to improve surveillance and aftercare. We are grateful to CoMO for the support and for selecting our application.”
Dr. Spensa’r Fulgence is a passionate young medical doctor and Friend of CoMO from Tanzania. He is deeply committed to ending preventable infectious diseases, with a special focus on meningitis, and aims to unite meningitis survivors, healthcare workers and communities in a relentless fight against this life-threatening disease.
Dr. Fulgence’s project will feature two in-person events at local hospitals: one for children, parents, local journalists and media representatives; and the other for council commissioners, healthcare professionals and meningitis survivors. Dr. Fulgence’s team will distribute physical materials featuring meningitis symptoms, as well as the Meningitis Flag.
The campaign will also visit three schools to raise awareness among secondary students as well as involving teachers and local healthcare workers.
These activities will be promoted through a press conference and on local radio stations.
Dr. Fulgence said: “As a dedicated advocate within CoMO, I channel my energy into raising life-saving awareness and spearheading prevention efforts. My passion lies in lighting the path to a future where meningitis is defeated, and every community can live free from its devastating impact. I am truly honored to be selected as one of the fund recipients and can’t wait to move forward with this project and see it come to fruition.”
The Japan Child Meningitis Org (JaCMO) was established in 2006 by a group of concerned parents and health professionals. After achieving their original goal of getting two vaccines onto the National Immunisation Program in 2013, they now focus on disseminating information about protecting against the key remaining strains that affect children, as well as providing support to affected families.
JaCMO’s project aligns with CoMO’s annual Light the road ahead campaign, and centres around the illumination of the iconic Osaka Castle for World Meningitis Day. JaCMO will project keywords and messages onto the building, hand-make animal-shaped lights and call on their social media supporters to make origami cranes and candles.
School students will be able to watch the lighting up of the castle at an event held at a nearby rooftop running track, and the event will be promoted in newspapers and on TV.
Vice-chair, Hajime Takeuchi, said: “We are truly grateful for the funding. Although we are a small organisation, we have played a major role in introducing the Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccine and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine into the National Immunisation Programme. Meningitis is still a life-threatening infectious disease in Japan, so this World Meningitis Day initiative will increase understanding of it.”
Care and Development Centre (CADEC) is a Nigerian NGO (non-governmental organisation) with a mission to empower vulnerable people through participatory approaches. They work with disadvantaged people to design and implement programmes that improve their well-being and socio-economic welfare.
CADEC’s project aims to increase public awareness of the risks, symptoms, signs, prevention, and after-effects of meningitis, across selected locations in three states of Nigeria. They will train 22 Community Health Extension Workers (CHEWs) in these areas to share their knowledge with the communities they serve, broadening the reach of their awareness campaign. They will collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders, including CHEWS, school students, religious leaders, and the regional office of the WHO.
The project will draw on the World Meningitis Day themes of “Telling your story” by finding and sharing stories from a meningitis survivor or caregiver and also “Lighting the road ahead” by lighting up the streets with religious groups, schools and the wider local community. All of this will be shared on radio and TV broadcasts, social media channels and by word of mouth through influential groups.
Executive Director, Omorodion Rhoda Omoile, said: “We would like to express our appreciation for this opportunity to get the Non-Meningitis Belt regions of Nigeria aware of the signs and symptoms of meningitis, and most importantly, to begin to take measures to prevent potential outbreaks of meningitis in the Non-Meningitis Belt states.”
If you'd like to read more about our Advocacy Fund pilot, please click here. If you have any questions, feel free to email samanthan@meningitis.org.
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