Ranchi: The Azim Premji Foundation teamed up with the state health department and a New Delhi-based non-profit organisation to carry out Covid-19 vaccination drives through folk art in 514 hard-to-reach villages in five districts of Jharkhand.

Spread over 22 blocks of the tribal-dominated Ranchi, Khunti, Lohardaga, Gumla and Simdega districts, these villages, tucked away in deep forests, atop hillocks and in rebel-hit bastions, were posing challenges in terms of vaccine hesitancy and outreach owing to the absence of non-motorable roads.

“The people would chase us away. They would refuse to get vaccinated stating that it could kill them,” Savitri Devi, a Sahiya working in remote Dundru village in Maoist-hit Peshrar block of Lohardaga district, told TOI.