Barter for Better Fiji initiative encourages 441 people to get vaccinated

The Barter for Better Fiji are doing their part to ensure more people turn up to get vaccinated by giving them recharge top ups in exchange for getting the vaccine.

The initiative has resulted in 441 members getting the first jab of the COVID-19 AstraZeneca vaccine in the last 15 days and they have been given top ups in return.

To get the top ups, members who got vaccinated between from June 15th to the 30th were required to send a photo of their vaccination card.

Tavai Bale who is one of the admins of the group says they had a discussion about three weeks ago about how they can help the country considering the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases and the need for people to get vaccinated.

Bale says they spoke to the Head of the Vaccination Taskforce Doctor Rachel Devi on how they can assist because the Ministry was facing challenges in achieving herd immunity.

She says they decided to reach out to their members and help the Ministry of Health in getting more people vaccinated. Bale adds since everything needs to be bartered, they cannot just tell their members to go and get vaccinated and not give them anything in return because that is against their own group rules.

Bale says the reason they chose top ups is because they have seen a number of people in the Barter for Better Facebook page who are bartering for top ups.