Painting a picture of the benefits of polio vaccination

Adding creativity and colour to polio eradication efforts in Afghanistan.

Throughout Kabul, on the many long, grey blast walls that line the city’s roadways, a splash of colour is helping to mobilize caregivers to vaccinate their children against polio.

Afghan NGO The Art Lords, supported by UNICEF, are in the process of painting 250 murals up to 30 feet high and 100 feet wide on high-visibility walls, portraying men and women vaccinating children against polio, accompanied by the slogan ‘Two drops of polio vaccination for every child, up to 5 years of age’.

The project started by Kabul but its popularity has seen it extended to priority cities across the country, with city officials, hospitals and schools approaching the polio programme to ask if their walls can be next.

The Art Lords typically take two days to complete the mural, starting at night by projecting an image against the wall and tracing it with pencil, before returning the next day to add colour. Children regularly join in to help with the painting.

See the video here on how The Art Lords are adding colour to the effort to eradicate polio from Afghanistan.


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