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This year's World TB Day theme continued from last year: "Yes, We Can End TB!" and that positive sentiment was certainly felt by our team as we marked the occasion filled with hope and determination that together we will beat this deadly disease.
We kicked off Anti-TB week, which precedes World TB Day, with a skating rally for TB awareness! More than 100 students strapped on their rollerskates and skated from Ramanthapuram SP Office to Rameswaram Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Mermorial holding banners and signs. We even made it onto not one, but two, local news channels! Check it out below to spot our Director, Mercy, who was there to give a speech and encourage our skaters along the way. Well done skaters!
Our team also took part in two conferences at V.V.Vannia Perumal College for Women, in Virudhungar and Kammavar Sangam College of Technology, in Theni to raise awareness on TB and the importance of following medical treatments. We engaged with students and spoke to them about the symptoms to spot in themselves, friends or family, the treatments available and the importance of defying the stigma that surrounds TB. At Kammavar College, the students were actively involved in the awareness-raising as they performed plays showing how to recognise the symptoms of TB and how to behave when a case is detected. The informational sessions alternated with performances: dance, music and martial arts.
We finished Anti-TB Week with 2 more events, one in Sattur and one in Madurai, raising awareness by placing banners on autorickshaws to spread the message about TB far and wide!
On the 24th March, World TB Day, we held an online advocacy conference. We heard from District TB officers and from our very own TB advocates here at Blossom. Together we learnt how Dure Technology’s OneImpact app can be used for community led monitoring and how MPP is working to ensure equal access to TB medication. We even heard about tackling TB in prisons in Azerbaijan from Support Health and supporting those with TB in refugee camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo from PEPA!
Thank you to all our nearly 100 participants who took part. As we said in our conference, TB is not beaten, until it is beaten everywhere and at Blossom, we are committed to working together with communities so that together we will end TB.