“You See My Child”: How One Mother Changed Her Neighbourhood's Mind About Polio
In Kandi, in Benin's northern Alibori department, Docasse Moutangou is 27 years old, married, a seamstress by trade, and the mother of a boy of one year and one month. She is also, without ever having been given the title, one of the most effective advocates for vaccination in her neighbourhood.
A lesson passed from mother to daughter
Her conviction did not begin with a campaign or a health talk. It began at home, with her own mother.
“From my childhood, my mother had me vaccinated to protect me against vaccine-preventable diseases,” Docasse says. “When I was very small, she taught me how important vaccination is for children's health. As the years passed and I grew up, she never stopped reminding me how she had protected me against disease.”
The reminders did not stop when Docasse married. Her mother would visit and return to the same subject: the need to be vaccinated, the diseases that vaccination prevents.
From the first month of pregnancy
So when Docasse became pregnant with her first child, she already knew what to do. In the very first month, she went to the health centre in her neighbourhood to see the midwife for her antenatal visit — and began her tetanus–diphtheria (Td) vaccinations, completing two doses before delivery.
After her son was born, she followed her mother's example and kept to his immunisation schedule. Today, at just over a year old, he has received every vaccine due to him — from BCG, polio at birth and hepatitis B in his first days, through to measles–rubella, yellow fever and meningitis vaccines at nine months. One appointment remains: the measles booster.
Keeping track is not always easy. “I often forget my child's vaccination appointments,” she admits. She relies on the community health relay assigned to her cluster, who reminds her of the dates during household visits and comes by on the eve of each appointment to encourage her to go.
During polio campaigns, she never misses a round. Her son has received more than four doses of polio vaccine since birth.
Docasse Moutangou with her child, vaccinated during the campaign, at home in Kandi, Alibori department.
“Why vaccinate a child who isn't even sick?”
Not everyone around her understood. Some of her sisters and friends made fun of her.
“Why have your child vaccinated when he isn't even sick?” some asked. Others insisted: “The child will fall ill after the vaccination, especially during campaigns.”
Rather than argue, Docasse decided to explain. She committed herself to raising awareness among the women closest to her — her sisters, her sisters-in-law, her friends — about the importance of vaccination against polio and other diseases.
Weddings, baptisms and the art of the everyday conversation
Her method is disarmingly simple: she talks where women already gather. At weddings, at baptisms, at family celebrations, she turns the conversation to polio and to the diseases that vaccination prevents.
And she leads with the evidence standing in front of them — her own child.
“You see my child: from his birth until today, he does not often fall ill, because I follow his routine vaccination schedule strictly, and at every campaign I have him vaccinated against polio when the relay comes to the house. That is why he is always in good health.”
The community health relay explains the date of the child's next vaccination appointment to Mme Docasse.
What changed
The argument landed. Many of her sisters, sisters-in-law and friends came to understand why vaccination matters for their children. And the effect spread beyond her own circle: in her neighbourhood, many mothers of children under five have begun bringing their children forward during polio campaigns — and keeping to the routine immunisation schedule as well.
Docasse was never recruited, trained or paid to do this work. She simply carried forward what her mother taught her, and made the case in the places where trust already existed. In a department where a single unvaccinated child can keep a virus circulating, that is no small contribution.
Story and photographs by Abdel Aziz Kadai, SBC Consultant, UNICEF Benin — Cotonou, June 2026.
Edited by Daria Shubina, UNICEF Polio SBC Knowledge Management Specialist.