“With first vaccinations drying up far from reaching any target, the Government should learn from the Partnership School (Charter School) model that reached children disengaged from Government education,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.

“The Partnership School model gave communities a simple proposition: Use your local knowledge to engage kids in your community with education. ‘Do it your way and we will reward you for results.’ That is the approach that is now needed for people reluctant to get results.

“This morning on Q+A, experts engaged with youth and with pacific communities shared their ideas for creating youth incentive schemes and offering vaccinations door to door. Youth worker Daniel Haurua suggested youth should be rewarded for recruiting their friends to be vaccinated. Dr Api Talemaitoga advocated offering vaccinations door-to-door. The Wellington bureaucracy is incapable of offering these kinds of creative solutions.

“ACT has been calling for more partnership in the Government’s response since our COVID 2.0 paper in March, but the Government has not listened. Most recently we have called for the Governments to host ‘sprints’ with different groups to co-create better solutions.

“A partnership model for vaccination would mean seeking applications from community groups to get people not currently booked to book and vaccinate in innovative ways. They would use their flexibility and funding to get results and be rewarded for doing so.

“A proactive Government would roll out a Partnership Model for vaccination this week, seeking applications as the previous Government did for Partnership Schools. Applicants would show how their model would work, with successful ones contracted to begin work immediately.

“Daniel Haurua’s scheme might be an example. A group led by him could propose a peer-recruitment scheme, with users recruiting their peers and being paid when they are vaccinated. They could use their ability to relate to and communicate with youth and answer their objections with insights the Ministry of Health simply does not have.

“If it cost $100 each to get the last million vaccinated, that would be $100 million, less than one extra day of lockdown. To borrow a phrase, ‘let’s do this.’”


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