Shujaaz Inc COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign Shortlisted for the 2022 Purpose Awards

Shujaaz Inc 2021 flagship COVID-19 campaign #LindaFam has been shortlisted for the  Purpose Awards in the ‘Brand Led, Best Health Cause Campaign’ category. This vaccination campaign is built on the success of our wider COVID-19 campaign #LindaFam from 2020 – 21. 

#LindaFam was an ambitious digital, analogue and grassroots campaign that reached over 18m young East Africans online. It activated 4500+ Shujaaz ‘SuperFans’ as youth micro-influencers, amplifying our norm-changing multimedia to build confidence and uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine across Kenya and Tanzania. 

This nomination is really a win for the young people who have been working to champion the uptake of the covid vaccine among their peers and communities.”

“We are thrilled that our Covid-19 vaccination campaign has been shortlisted for the prestigious Purpose Awards. This second part of our #LindaFam (Protect Your Family) campaign centres around young ‘heroes’ in Kenya who have been working to champion the uptake of the covid vaccine among their peers and communities. This nomination is really a win for them and for our brilliant team of young creatives who amplified their powerful stories this year.” Said Bridget Deacon, MD Shujaaz Inc

In the first phase of the #LindaFam campaign, our network of over 5,000 volunteer SuperFans stepped up and mobilised at a scale we had never seen before. From March to November 2020, faced with new public health measures, our SuperFans built over 2,000 new comic dispensers to enable us to distribute our comic books safely. In 2020, ‘SuperFans’ distributed 3.7M special-edition comics and 800,000 flyers and posters carrying vital public health information and advice across Kenya. Our ‘SuperFans’ became citizen journalists and content-creators, filming real-time insights on the mood in their neighbourhoods, and updates on how their communities were responding to the pandemic.  

The kick-off and overall success of the first phase of #LindaFam were made possible with the support of our partners, including UNICEF, FCDO, AMREF, Unilever, USAID, and the Ministry of Health. We even managed to bag the  IF Social impact prize for the first phase of the #LindaFam campaign implemented in 2020. 

The first year of the pandemic had proved that top-down, official public health messaging just wasn’t working. Therefore, as Kenya began its vaccination roll-out in 2021, in partnership with Imaginable Futures, Umsizi, and the Vaccine Confidence Fund, we designed the second phase of the #LindaFam campaign to mobilise millions of young people as powerful advocates for vaccination in their communities.

Hearing personal, relatable stories from peers you trust drives massive impact.”

“Hearing personal, relatable stories from peers you trust drives massive impact. Thanks to the support of our partners and network – this is a win for all of us.” Added Bridget Deacon 

We mobilised millions of Shujaaz fans to call on their friends to ‘Waichanjo’. By February 2022 85% of young Kenyans said they would recommend the Covid-19 vaccine to their friends.  

The recognition by Purpose Awards (an internationally acclaimed award for social impact) is an honour that reaffirms the importance of our work at Shujaaz. Young people are powerful agents of change in their friendship groups and their communities. That’s why our platforms are designed to create spaces where young people can have judgement-free conversations about their lives and find support from peers and friends. Watch the campaign video here