Nov. 16, 2022
Martha Rebour: Global Vaccine Advocacy and Health Security with Shot@Life
Some experiences stay with you forever—and my conversation with Martha Rebour is one of those that brings me right back to the moments that changed how I see the world. From traveling to Zambia and witnessing firsthand the realities families face just to access life-saving vaccines, to understanding the global impact of organizations like Shot@Life, this conversation is both eye-opening and deeply meaningful.
We explore the power of advocacy, the progress that has been made in global health, and the challenges that still exist—especially in a post-pandemic world. Martha shares incredible insight into the work being done behind the scenes, along with powerful stories that highlight just how much impact one voice—and one action—can truly have.
Episode Highlights
[01:22] – Martha’s journey into global health and her role with Shot@Life
[02:17] – Reflecting on Zambia and the emotional impact of witnessing vaccine access challenges
[03:53] – Cultural perspectives on vaccines and why they are deeply valued in many communities
[05:22] – The realities families face just to reach clinics—distance, danger, and determination
[07:30] – The resilience of healthcare workers operating in extremely limited conditions
[08:05] – What Shot@Life does and how grassroots advocacy drives global impact
[12:50] – Why advocating on Capitol Hill is such a powerful and transformative experience
[13:52] – How the COVID-19 pandemic reversed decades of progress in global immunization
[17:02] – The biggest challenges in vaccine advocacy and strengthening healthcare systems
[23:05] – Inside UNICEF’s global supply hub and the innovation behind humanitarian aid
[26:08] – Why this work matters on a personal level and the power of preventative health
[28:16] – Finding inspiration through the people on the frontlines of global health
[31:25] – Words of wisdom: Don’t underestimate the power of your voice
Links & Resources
- Shot@Life: https://shotatlife.org
- UN Foundation: https://unfoundation.org
Follow Amelia
Instagram: @AmeliaOldOfficial
Website: https://AmeliaOld.com
If this conversation moved you, share it with someone who believes in making a difference. Don’t forget to follow, rate, and leave a review—it helps these stories reach more people and continue creating impact around the world.
Transcript
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Everyone has a story to tell.
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We connect and we relate to one another when we share our stories.
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My name is Lilia Oak, and I'm your host of Witness Inspiration.
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With me, I share stories to friends, family, and strangers through my everyday life and travels.
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We will laugh, possibly cry, but walk away feeling connected more than ever to those around you and ready to be the change our world needs.
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Everyone has a story to tell.
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What's your Martha Reward joined the UN Foundation in June 2014 as executive director, she oversees campaign strategy and implementation, corporate partnerships, advocacy, and communications activities for the campaign Shot At Life.
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Prior to joining the foundation, Martha worked for 15 years in strategic branding, digital and social media marketing, messaging, creative development, partnership building, and consumer research for corporate and nonprofit clients.
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While at Discovery Channel, Martha crafted multi-million dollar marketing campaigns around events such as Shark Week and the award-winning series Planet Earth.
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In her spare time, Martha enjoys cooking, reading contemporary fiction, and spending time traveling and being outside with her family.
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Thank you so much for joining me today, Martha.
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Oh, thank you for having me.
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I'm so excited to have you here.
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Shot It Life is the organization that you're involved with, and they aim to ensure that children around the world have access to life-saving vaccines.
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And I first became involved with Shot It Life when a friend invited me to attend one of the Champions summits, which is where attendees train as advocates for global childhood immunization programs and meet with legislators on Capitol Hill.
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And you and I met soon after I got involved, where we had the opportunity to visit Zambia with the UN Foundation to see the work that's being done in these areas, witnessing the challenges the locals faced with providing children with vaccines.
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And this trip was by far one of the most impactful of my travels.
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And there is not a week that goes by that I do not think about it or talk to people about it.
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The work being done by the UN Foundation of Shot Up Life, along with others, such as UNICEF, is really incredible.
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And I'm so grateful that I was there with you to witness everything firsthand.
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Well, I was certainly grateful to have you along, and I agree.
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That was a very impactful trip for me too.
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And I've been on many, as you can imagine.
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But Zambia was very interesting too because we were traveling with people like yourself who have a very wide audience and who were really eager to share every day when after we'd go out and visit clinics and it would be dusty and hot.
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You would all be very keen, I remember, especially you, to get online and share what you had seen and tell the stories of some of these mothers we had spoken to.
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So for me too, it really was a really impactful trip.
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I think the trip too was when you first joined as the executive director at Shot It Life.
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I think that was the very beginning of that chapter for you at Shot It Life.
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You're right.
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At that time, current director had just left.
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So I was stepping into a new role.
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I had been deputy director.
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So more a role that was a little more external facing versus the sort of internal running the team operations role.
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So yeah, that was kind of a pivotal time for me with the campaign.
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I mean, there were some incredible stories from that trip.
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I remember being told that these mothers, when their children receive these vaccines, they hold the little pink slip up, just like we would the diploma of our children graduating high school or college.
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And that is a story that has stuck with me.
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And I tell it time and time again, especially through the pandemic.
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But that was one thing that really stuck out to me during that time.
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Yeah.
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And I'm I don't think it's in Zambia, but in many cultures, it's sort of on a more serious note, but a lot of mothers don't name their children until they've had the routine immunization.
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So that is really for them an important step.
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Like they have a really good chance of making it now to their fifth birthday.
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So that's also something.
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There are other cultures in Senegal, they dress their babies up because it's a big day, as we might for, I don't know, a religious confirmation or something else.
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They dress them up in their finest to bring them to get vaccinated.
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So yeah, I think it is think is it's something we kind of take for granted, just you know, driving to the doctors, you know, your kids gonna scream.
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And we don't think about because we don't see a lot of these diseases.
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So we forget that for people living in other circumstances where they see these diseases come through a village and take out kids, it is such an important step that those, you know, first routine immunizations.
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Yeah, I I mean, I was even surprised at the challenges that they faced, even getting to some of these clinics because the clinics were so far out.
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And I know that you and I'm and the rest of our group met with a mother that had biked 11 miles each way with three children in tow, mind you.
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And their biggest, not their biggest, but one of their challenges was timing to make sure they got back home before the elephants come out at night.
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Yes.
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Do you remember?
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So they were saying the male elephants were really virile and that it was a real threat if they, you know, right around sunset is when they were the most dangerous.
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So you and I had wanted to interview.
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And I remember the healthcare worker who, interestingly enough, I don't know if you remember from that clinic, she ran the entire clinic.
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And I remember we asked, like, what happens if you're sick?
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And she's like, I'm never sick, I can't be sick.
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I'm never sick.
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Like, all these women rely on me.
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She herself, yeah, really had.
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I don't think she had to walk as far, but she I remember she came up to us and said, if you want to interview this woman, she needs to leave soon because she's got like a couple hour bike ride home.
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And I remember thinking, wow, that that feels a little extreme.
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And then do you remember when we were in our van and it stopped in the middle of the road at night?
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And we were like, What's happening?
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And we saw this bike with someone's, you know, basket of whatever their groceries, yeah, all across the road.
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And there was an elephant.
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And our driver was like, even though we were in a van, he's like, I'm stopping right here.
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Because if he decides to charge us, it's not good.
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So we're just gonna turn off the lights and stop until he kind of makes his way.
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If I recall correctly, the elephant actually grabbed the bike and threw it up in the air.
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Yes, exactly.
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And that's why the groceries were everywhere, yeah.
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And it was kind of mangled.
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It was it was unreal because I love elephants, I don't think of them as being, but of course, the I guess male of any species of animal can have that instinct a little bit.
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But yeah, then that woman's story, I was like, ah, okay, I get it.
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Yeah, and there was another village that we went into, and I found it fascinating that when these women before their due date or before they were getting close to their due date, they would, because they lived so far from the clinics, they would just go and stay at the clinic until they had their babies.
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And then if they could give birth in the middle of the night, the nurses would use the light from their cell phones to help these women, and that is something else that stuck with me.
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Do you remember they would say they would hold it in their mouth?
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Yes.
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Because they needed both of their hands.
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Yeah, I I remember we did finally get, can't remember if it was that trip, another trip I went on, where they had solar panels.
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And I know there's been a huge push now to install solar panels, but yeah, we were all thinking, oh my gosh, this little like app on our phone, we turned on our flashlight to like find our keys.
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These nurses were actually having to like hold it in their mouths to deliver a baby.
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That was unreal.
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It was.
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It was.
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Can you tell our listeners just exactly what Shot At Life does?
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So a little bit of the history is UN Foundation, first, I should say, because that's where we're housed, was started by Ted Turner 24 years ago.
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We'll have our 25th anniversary next year.
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And he started it because he really believed in the work the UN was doing around the world.
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And he felt like Americans didn't know and didn't really understand how crucial the UN is.
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And at the time, the US was in arrears of its dues.
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So as a Security Council member, there's you know certain dues that were needed to be paid.
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So he started the UN Foundation, and the idea is that you need to have everyday Americans tell their legislators, tell their policymakers how important the UN is.
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So when it comes to appropriations, they will be they'll fund fully, you know, and robustly these programs.
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So 24 years ago was UN Foundation, and then maybe 15 years ago or more, Bill and Melinda Gates, actually much more than 15 years ago, now I think about it, but they went to Africa to see animals on a vacation, like a safari.
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And they were both so shocked by the extreme poverty that they saw that they started getting really interested.
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And, you know, Bill is all about numbers and stats and data.
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And when he looked at communities in extreme poverty, he realized the just best way to lift communities out of poverty is to provide affordable vaccines.
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Because when kids aren't sick, then parents don't have to stay home from work.
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It also prevents death, it prevents kids from dying.
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So he set up, you know, a big part of their foundation to work on vaccines.
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We all know he's quite well known for polio and wanting to working to eradicate polio.
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But he came to UN Foundation and said, you're so good, you know, based in DC, you set up these constituents that reach out to their legislators.
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We want you to set something up based on vaccines for kids and really have volunteers that will contact their legislators and say, please, you know, fund UNICEF, fund CDC's work in this area.
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So that's when Shot at Life was born about 12 years ago.
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And we're a grassroots advocacy organization.
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So similar to what you said as you came to us for your summit, we train, we have more than 3,500 trained champions all across the US, and we're in all 50 states, which is really exciting.
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And we give them the tools to do advocacy.
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Some people are more experienced than others, but for people who have never reached out to their congressional office, don't know how to do it, don't know anything about how appropriations work, we give them the tools.
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And then if they come to our summit, as you remember, we have a day where we all march up to Capitol Hill and they can meet with their legislators and we fill them in on the latest that's happening in immunization, right?
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It's very dynamic as there are new vaccines, there are new needs, there are new outbreaks.
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So we fill them in and sort of arm them to be able to go up to Capitol Hill.
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So grassroots advocacy is how we have probably the biggest impact because these are hundreds of millions of dollars, which to you and me maybe sounds like a lot of money, but in the federal budget, it is a literal drop in the bucket.
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It's a very small part of the federal budget, but that is huge impact.
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And then we also do relationships with some corporate partners.
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So the best, most well-known one is our relationship with Walgreens.
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So right now, flu season, if anyone goes into a Walgreens, we have a program called Get a Shot, Give a Shot.
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So if you get your vaccine, I call it a triple play because you're protecting yourself, you're protecting those in your community.
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And then Walgreens will through us donate for a child around the world to be protected from measles or polio.
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And that program's been going for 10 years now.
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So it's longstanding and they've already provided 75 million doses to kids around the world.
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So yeah, that's a really, that's a really great partnership.
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And they've committed to 100 million.
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So we'll probably hit that in about a year or two.
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So it's really exciting to see direct impact as well as this bigger, you know, impact in US government's investments.
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And I have to say, if if any listener has not uh participated in a day on the hill with Shot At Life or any other organization, it is something that I highly recommend doing because it's such a powerful day for whatever cause that you might be advocating for.
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And you truly feel that day that you do have a say-so and that you do have an impact with your voice.
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And I think those days are just super incredible.
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And I think everyone should participate in one in their lifetime.
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Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.
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Everyone comes out of them so inspired, whether or not you see your favorite member of Congress when you're up on the hill.
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But really, I mean, that's democracy, right?
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And I think our government's really unique that way, and that you can just make an appointment and sit down and talk to a congressional office about what matters to you.
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And they really do listen and take notes because they all have to be re-elected.
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And so if they have constituents that really care about something and they hear from them, they're definitely going to take notes.
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So I agree.
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If anyone hasn't done it, it's a powerful experience and a good sort of lesson in democracy and really being engaged in our government.
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I agree.
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So millions of children around the world are now more susceptible to diseases such as measles, polio, pneumonia, all of which are preventable with vaccines.
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And I am sure with the COVID-19 pandemic, these numbers have increased.
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How did you personally see all of this affected by the pandemic?
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Yeah, it's it's a great question.
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You know, Amelia, between 2000 and 2020, when really there was a huge concerted effort, and then, you know, shot at life in about 2012, say when we when we started go really getting going and doing advocacy, deaths, measles used to be the leading cause of death for children around the world.
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Measles' deaths went down by 80%.
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So we know vaccines work.
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We had made such incredible progress.
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Unfortunately, when the pandemic hit, as we knew, it it didn't necessarily affect children that as strongly, right?
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And it really wasn't causing death in children.
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But what happened in a lot of these low resource countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, is their health systems, we said, sort of buckled.
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So the weight of, first of all, healthcare workers themselves being sick, these new expenses because of COVID vaccines, the they didn't have the infrastructure.
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In most low resource countries, they don't vaccinate adults, which you know, we can we can have an argument about.
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I think that is coming, but they don't have that infrastructure.
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So they, you know, reaching out to adults, creating that behavior, all of that, it was a huge burden.
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And really, I think it was particularly a lot of frontline healthcare workers became ill, right?
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They didn't have masks necessarily.
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And we we all none of us knew in the beginning either, right?
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So what's happened quite tragically is immunization coverage levels, and you think of the percentage of children in a community who are covered, has gone back three decades.
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So it's gone back 30 years to before we all came together.
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And, you know, really, and as we all know, you know, there are millions of babies being born every day.
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And so we have got to catch back up.
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So the numbers are daunting, and you know, COVID is not over, and it's not over in this country.
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It's certainly not over in a lot of those countries.
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Even access to the COVID vaccine is still fairly sparse.
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But the good news is that we have technology and innovation, and we can make this quantum leap, which we need to make to get things back on track.
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We need the will, it will take resources, but we know the cost of not doing anything, right?
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The cost of not doing anything is not only lives lost and illness, but the economic fallout is enormous.
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So they're really it it's it's a unique place to be.
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And I think none of us imagined we would be talking about just getting back to where we were a few years ago.
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But that's that's really what we're gonna have to all sort of roll up our sleeves and and and focus on because the numbers are their coverage rates are very low, and we're already seeing measles outbreaks.
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For instance, we know that's the most infectious of the diseases.
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They're already happening around the world.
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So so we really do need to double down on resources and get us back to where we were.
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What do you think the biggest challenge is for vaccine advocacy?
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I think, you know, it's interesting because you can vaccine advocacy can be advocacy in this country.
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It can be global advocacy.
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I feel like one of the something you and I saw, right?
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Chris, let's let's get that clear, is there is not really vaccine hesitancy in most low resource settings because people see disease, then they also see a community that's been vaccinated versus ones that doesn't have access to vaccines.
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So we know that the internet is global, so misinformation travels quickly around the world, but I would say by and large, vaccine hesitancy is not one of the barriers.
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I think the barriers are strengthening health systems so they're more resilient.
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You know, we will have other pandemics, there will be outbreaks, and if we don't have an adequately paid health care workforce, so in a lot of countries, I was fortunate enough to visit the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo, in June and meeting with healthcare workers there as well as officials from UNICEF, they explained that there were healthcare workers that had not been paid, just had not been paid for months.
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So they felt like they had no choice.
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They went on strike.
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You can imagine.
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So healthcare workers on strike during a pandemic, and it was interesting because, you know, when I arrived, I luckily I got this naive question out of the way early on in my visit.
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But I said, How has COVID been?
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And they were like, COVID that flu like they were like, we have Ebola, yellow fever, monkeypox, cholera, you know, they have a lot of very serious diseases.
00:18:49.200 --> 00:18:55.680
And it's not that COVID didn't affect them at all, but really given everything else you're dealing with, that was not the most important one.
00:18:55.839 --> 00:19:00.559
But when you don't pay your healthcare workforce, they need to make ends meet.
00:19:00.720 --> 00:19:02.559
They had no choice, from what I understood.
00:19:02.640 --> 00:19:06.160
And again, I'm not an expert on the DRC, but to go on strike.
00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:19.119
So when they go on strike, then all of the activities cease of whether it's vaccinating children or, you know, treating somebody who's a broken limb, you know, you can imagine, or someone else who has a disease.
00:19:19.359 --> 00:19:27.519
So I think bolstering healthcare systems so that they are resilient is really what's most important.
00:19:27.680 --> 00:19:30.160
And that is a combination of resources.
00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:35.359
And I think the US government has done a good job stepping up, and I hope that continues.
00:19:35.839 --> 00:19:37.039
And it's training.
00:19:37.119 --> 00:19:38.799
I mean, they're fabulous organizations.
00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:42.240
I know we talked to you about GAVI and we saw some GAVI trucks.
00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:45.839
So Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, GAVI was formed.
00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:59.039
Actually, Bill Gates and some others were at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and they were figuring out that some of the main causes of death in children from infectious disease were pneumonia and rotavirus.
00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:04.640
And rotavirus is a virus that infects the intestines, and children die from diarrhea.
00:20:04.720 --> 00:20:06.559
In fact, it's diarrheal disease.
00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:13.519
And those vaccines were just out of reach for many low resource countries, incredibly expensive.
00:20:13.759 --> 00:20:21.039
So GAVI was set up to make they sort of said the market wasn't working for low resource countries.
00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:27.119
So they said, all right, what if we pulled a lot of money together, went to vaccine manufacturers?
00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:32.640
It's a little what we say, like the Costco model, and say we're going to buy, you know, 40 million doses.
00:20:32.720 --> 00:20:41.599
So you could move all your factories to making this one vaccine, but because we're buying in such bulk, you're going to give it to us at a majorly reduced price.
00:20:41.759 --> 00:20:46.480
So that is a very simplistic view of Gabby's model.
00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:52.640
They have evolved to do a lot more because what they saw is getting vaccine into a country is not enough.
00:20:52.720 --> 00:21:01.839
And they they have a unique model too, in that they will work with a country and they will say, okay, they never will just give vaccines for free.
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:10.880
They'll say, we will finance, for instance, 80% of the cost for three years, then 60%, and eventually countries graduate.
00:21:10.960 --> 00:21:16.319
So they learn to write it into their budgets so they themselves take on the cost.
00:21:16.480 --> 00:21:21.920
But a lot of Gavi's evolution has been, as I said, we can't just provide vaccines.
00:21:22.079 --> 00:21:24.240
We may need to help provide transportation.
00:21:24.400 --> 00:21:26.720
I think you and I saw some trucks in Zambia.
00:21:26.960 --> 00:21:35.359
We may need to provide refrigeration and solar refrigeration because a lot of these settings don't have a reliable electrical grid.
00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:39.839
So you cannot have a blackout and you know lose a whole batch of vaccines.
00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:51.039
So I think Gabby, but UNICEF also, I think all partners are in now working closely with ministries of health and ministries of finance to build stronger and more resilient health systems.
00:21:51.119 --> 00:21:55.440
Because I think that is really, you know, we we can ignore that.
00:21:55.519 --> 00:21:59.759
And we can't ignore in this country the sort of global health security side of things.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:06.799
You know, if the pandemic taught us anything, it's something that all those of us who work in infectious disease have been saying for a long time.
00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:09.279
A disease anywhere is a threat everywhere, right?
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:11.119
Any disease is a plane right away.
00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:13.119
We're living more and more connected.
00:22:13.200 --> 00:22:15.039
People are traveling more and more.
00:22:15.279 --> 00:22:20.079
And so we can't afford to say that disease over there, it doesn't affect us.
00:22:20.240 --> 00:22:20.640
It does.
00:22:20.799 --> 00:22:22.079
COVID clearly showed us that.
00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:26.480
God at Life taught me years ago, diseases knows no borders.
00:22:26.720 --> 00:22:26.960
Right?
00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:28.240
They don't need a passport.
00:22:28.319 --> 00:22:31.039
They will go right over a border, hop on a plane.
00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:35.920
So I think we also need to look at it in terms of global health security, you know.
00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:47.759
And I think in some of our advocacy for some of our members' offices that are maybe traditionally a little more hesitant towards foreign aid, we don't frame it as foreign aid.
00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:50.720
We frame it as security of American people.
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Because if we don't stop diseases, then they will come across borders.
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