Mapping the Ferricks: Finding Chad's Missed Children, One Conversation at a Time
Some children are missed not because a campaign failed, but because no one knew where to look for them. In Chad, where herding families move with their animals and settle in seasonal camps known as ferricks, finding every child means first knowing where every household is. Two field activities show how communities themselves are being brought into that work.
Community dialogue with the leaders of Farcha village, held to map the surrounding ferricks in order to identify and catch up zero-dose and under-vaccinated children.
Putting the ferricks on the map
In the village of Farcha, the polio team convened a community dialogue with local leaders. The purpose was practical: to map the surrounding ferricks — the camps where herding families settle — so that zero-dose and under-vaccinated children living there could be identified and caught up.
The approach shifts who does the finding. Rather than relying on campaign teams to discover settlements from the outside, it draws community actors directly into identifying children who have been missed and into planning the vaccination activities that will reach them. Leaders who know exactly where families are camped, and when they move, become part of the microplanning itself.
Discussions with mothers of “positive-deviant” children, held to strengthen their engagement in promoting vaccination and in community-based surveillance — making them key actors in raising awareness among families and following up on alerts at community level.
Mothers who already do it right
The second activity took the team into households — specifically, to mothers of “positive-deviant” children: families who keep their children fully vaccinated despite facing the same barriers as everyone around them.
These conversations are designed to do more than acknowledge good practice. They aim to turn these mothers into key actors in their own communities — women who encourage other families to vaccinate, and who help monitor and report alerts as part of community-based surveillance. In settings where trust travels through personal relationships rather than official channels, a mother who has already made the choice is often the most persuasive voice available.
Why it matters
Taken together, the two activities describe a single method: bring the community inside the operational work. Leaders help locate the children campaigns cannot see; mothers who already vaccinate help persuade the ones campaigns cannot convince. Both turn residents from recipients of a service into active partners in finding every child.
Field note and photographs by Abdoul Karim Kaboré, STOP Team Polio – SBC, UNICEF Chad.
Edited by Daria Shubina, UNICEF Polio SBC Knowledge Management Specialist.