Meet the courageous woman ending polio in Afghanistan

Noora Awakar Mohammad was only sixteen years old when she started working as a volunteer for the Polio Programme in Afghanistan. Since then, she has lived through civil war and armed conflict in her country, which have left the health infrastructure in tatters. Recalling the days of war, Noora’s face tenses. "During the civil war years, on many occasions the polio campaign was stopped because of intense fighting. As soon as the fighting would stop, we would run to communities to vaccinate children," she recalls.

During those days, it was mostly elderly women and mothers who trained as vaccinators. The adolescent Noora had to work hard to build community trust. "Often, I stayed with the community and vaccinated the children amidst war. The community trusted me even though I was a young health worker," she remembers.

An Afghan child receives an ink mark on a finger after being administered polio drops during the first day of a polio vaccination campaign in Dehdaadi district in Bamyan on October 17, 2016.