Many hurdles on the way to vaccination: Zollinger Helferkreis supports people in shared accommodation

People who live in refugee accommodation are classified as “priority 2” in the vaccination ordinance.

But when making an appointment, many reach their limits.

Zolling

- People who are housed or work in refugee facilities belong to priority group 2 of the Coronavirus Vaccination Ordinance.

Following the call to register everyone who is interested in the vaccination, the Zolling helper began a few weeks ago to support the residents of the Zolling collective accommodation facility with registration.

"This turned out to be more complex than expected," said Stephan Griebel from the Helferkreis in retrospect.

Once again it became clear how important it is to support volunteers in refugee facilities.

Lots of questions - without the support of the Zollinger Helferkreis, refugees would have been in a fix

The residents had many questions about Corona in general and about vaccination in particular. “The uncertainties surrounding the AstraZeneca vaccine were of little help,” says Griebel. It also quickly became clear that the written information provided to the people in the accommodation did not bring the hoped-for success of providing information in advance and answering the most pressing questions. Some of the texts were too long, too abstract or “were not formulated appropriately for the target group on other levels,” according to the experience of the Helferkreis employees. And so the volunteers took on the important part of the educational work: After a first virtual residents' conference, the impression was confirmed that the vaccination campaign was not easy to implement. "There were just too many questions and uncertainty",as Stephan Griebel explains.

The members of the helper group therefore decided to visit the people several times in the run-up to the vaccination.

They went from door to door in search of conversation.

The Zollinger volunteers were supported by the full-time employees of the accommodation as much as they could.

As soon as a resident declared that they wanted to be vaccinated, registering for the vaccination turned out to be the next unexpected hurdle.

"For someone who is familiar with the Internet, email and registration for online services, registering for the corona vaccination is a matter of five minutes," says Griebel.

But for the residents of the shared accommodation, this familiarity with the technical circumstances was simply not available - which is why each registration took at least half an hour.

BRK carries out the vaccination on site in the collective accommodation facility in Zolling

Parallel to these preparations in the accommodation, the government of Upper Bavaria and those responsible in the Freising district office worked together with the Bavarian Red Cross on the implementation of the vaccination strategy for the residents of the accommodation.

And so it came about that due to the reaching of a minimum number of people interested in the vaccination and the availability of sufficient capacities, an appointment for the vaccination in the Zolling shared accommodation could be set.

At the end of April, the BRK's mobile vaccination team arrived at the accommodation and vaccinated the interested residents of the Zolling collective accommodation from 8 a.m. until just before noon.

The vaccination offer also applied to the employees working there - including the members of the volunteer group.

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