The Problem
The importance of vaccination and immunisation in saving young lives is recognised as a global developmental goal under SDG 3: Good Health and Well Being for All. However, gaps in access, awareness, and follow up continue to impede the holistic growth of millions of children. According to WHO and UNICEF, every year, an estimated 5.2 million deaths occur among children aged 1–59 months, of which 29% of deaths are easily preventable if children receive timely and age-appropriate vaccinations. Despite this, global immunisation coverage declined from 86% in 2019 to 81% in 2021, leaving millions of children unprotected.
In India, the challenge of immunisation dropouts among migrant children remains notably high. Nearly one-third of the world’s urban population lives in informal settlements, a number expected to only double by 2030. Migrant families living in these settlements often fall through the cracks of government immunisation schemes due to frequent mobility, lack of documentation, lack of
awareness of vaccinations and follow up doses, paucity of time due to labour intensive construction jobs, and limited access to frontline health services. Despite Mission Indradhanush’s post-COVID goal of achieving 90% immunisation coverage, the reality remains stark, with full immunisation at only 70% and a dropout rate of 21%, highlighting deep inequities in child immunisation among
vulnerable communities.
How Sampark is Bridging this Gap
As one migrant mother from Kadugodi migrant labour settlement shared, “The problem was not refusal, but lack of information. Without community-level outreach, migrant families like ours miss even life-saving immunisation.” For two years after moving to the city, her family received no guidance on immunisation and its importance, allowing fear and myths to shape decisions. It was only after engaging with Sampark’s Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) centre that trust was built through sustained parental counselling on health, nutrition, and vaccination.
Since 2007, Sampark through its 125 ECCE centers has offered holistic safety and care to migrant children from 0-6 years, an age group critical for child growth and brain development. Sampark’s ECCE centers take a lifecycle approach in ensuring that all migrant children receive continued and inclusive care at every critical growth stage in their life through health, nutrition, and age appropriate learning. Specific to immunization, migrant children receive 100% age appropriate immunisation coverage, tackling the dropout challenge at source. These ECCE centers ensure that service delivery comes straight to migrant families, thereby relieving them of socio-economic challenges. Between 2020-2025, Sampark has successfully offered immunization to 2,000 migrant children, while simultaneously counselling parents on why timely immunisation plays a crucial role in a migrant child’s growth and development. It offers the much needed protection from life-threatening yet preventable diseases, giving them a healthy start to life, especially for children under three years, greatly impacting physical, cognitive, and brain development. Recognising that immunisation for migrant children in India requires more than service delivery, Sampark focuses on community-based awareness, consistent follow-up, parental awareness and confidence-building. Through direct engagement, myth-busting, and coordination with health stakeholders like local Public Health Centers (PHC’s) and ASHA Nurses, Sampark ensures that migrant families have access to both information, awareness, and services. These efforts demonstrate how strengthening awareness and accessibility can significantly improve health outcomes and bridge long-standing gaps in immunisation for migrant children, ensuring no child is left behind due to mobility or marginalisation.
Strengthening Policy Pathways for Inclusive Immunisation
Sampark’s on-the-ground ECCE interventions highlight the urgent need for immunisation for migrant children in India to be adaptive, inclusive, and responsive to mobility. While government immunisation schemes for migrant children such as Mission Indradhanush provide a strong policy framework, gaps persist in last-mile delivery, continuity of care, and trust-building among highly transient populations. Community-driven, family-centric models like Sampark’s ECCE centres, embedded within urban migrant settlements, bridge these gaps by integrating daily care, nutrition, health monitoring, parental counselling, and 100% age-appropriate immunisation, along with strong linkages to PHCs and frontline health workers for maternal and child health support.
By embedding immunisation within the ECCE ecosystem and enabling migrant-sensitive tracking and follow-up mechanisms, this model ensures continuity of care even amid frequent migration. Sampark’s approach demonstrates how policy and practice can work in tandem, offering scalable lessons for strengthening child immunisation for migrant families and ensuring that no child’s right to health is compromised by mobility, invisibility, or social exclusion.