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July 1, 2021 – To enrich the quality of materials for the Vacc2School: Ligtas na Bakuna Para sa Balik-Eskwela campaign, the Department of Education (DepEd) conducted a health content creation workshop and planning for field school health personnel and information officers last week.

“Our role in education is to assist in providing correct information amidst the fears, confusion, misconception, misinformation, or even disinformation. Recognizing this critical undertaking, we tapped our school health personnel and information officers to further engage our stakeholders in our vaccination education efforts,” Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said.

Around 300 Vacc2School champions nationwide attended the virtual workshop on creating engaging health content using social media platforms. The workshop was organized by the Bureau of Learner Support Services-School Health Division (BLSS-SHD) in collaboration with Public Affairs Service (PAS).

In their messages to the participants, BLSS Director Lope B. Santos and PAS Director June Arvin C. Gudoy underscored the importance of close collaboration between school health personnel and information officers and of the effective synergy of their respective fields of expertise in producing campaign materials that are both accurate and compelling.

During the first part of the session, Department of Health-Health Promotions Bureau Branding and Creative Marketing Unit Head Paoloregel Samonte discussed the communication plan of the DOH in mitigating COVID-19 and provided tips in crafting relevant health-related materials.

“It’s very important that we connect to the people and know kung ano ba yung mensahe at ano yung materials that actually make sense to them, something that they know they could use,” Mr. Samonte said.

“In this century, where everything is fast-paced, digital natives na yung mga kausap natin, effective communication is really all about relationship, trust, and interaction,” he added.

In addition, TikTok Public Policy Head Toff Rada talked about the ways to maximize the platform’s features in the communication efforts of the Department and in reaching wider audiences.

“We have limited amount of time to capture the attention span of the people we want to talk to because of the nature of things. The new generation really is favoring short and concise videos,” Mr. Rada noted.

Meanwhile, SHD Chief Dr. Maria Corazon Dumlao reminded the Vacc2School champions that the contents they should produce must also be aligned with the Department’s policy in implementing the National Deployment and Vaccination Plan (NVDP).

During the workshop, participants were tasked to create a sample advocacy video on vaccination. Mr. Samonte from DOH and personnel from BLSS-SHD and PAS then commented on their outputs for factors to improve.

Aside from workshops, BLSS-SHD, PAS, and Regional Offices are eyeing to conduct more town halls and webinars to reinforce the vaccination campaign of the national government.

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