On a cool morning in rural Malawi, a community poultry vaccinator sets out from one village to the next with a small vaccine carrier and a tight timetable. Their mission is simple but high-stakes: protect chickens from Newcastle Disease, a highly contagious virus that can wipe out entire flocks and the communities' livelihoods in days.

For many rural households, village chickens are more than livestock. They are their main source of protein through eggs and meat, and a “walking ATM” that can be sold to pay for essentials such as school fees, medicine, or emergency expenses. In Malawi, poultry is widely kept and plays a significant role in household food security and income.

But Newcastle Disease remains a persistent threat. In outbreaks, losses can be devastating—Malawi’s Department of Animal Health and Livestock Development has cited flock devastation “up to 90%,” and other programmes working in the region report similarly severe mortality in affected flocks. Vaccination is widely recognised as the most effective practical control in village systems, particularly using the thermotolerant I2 vaccine designed for rural conditions where refrigeration can be limited.

That is where community-based vaccinators come in. Trained vaccinators travel door-to-door, registering households, planning campaigns, and administering the eye-drop vaccine—often three campaigns a year aligned with seasonal risk and movement of birds.

“The challenge isn’t demand, it’s distance,” says Marijke Frantzen, CEO of Kyeema Foundation. “Vaccinators in rural Malawi often walk long distances in harsh weather to reach scattered households. That slow travel reduces the number of homes they can reach, limit the number of chickens they can vaccinate, and their earning potential.”

The solution proposed is strikingly practical: bicycles.

A bike, explains Frantzen, can help vaccinators reach more households in less time, vaccinate more chickens per campaign, and protect vaccine effectiveness by shortening travel time, while generating zero emissions. “The long-term bet is that healthier flocks mean more eggs and meat, steadier incomes for smallholders, many of whom are women, and stronger community food security,” adds Kate Hampson, Kyeema Program Manager.

Thus, the Kyeema team launched a fundraising project to get bikes to those vaccinators. Kyeema Foundation, a longtime Palladium partner, has been working closely with the Rural Poultry Centre in Malawi since 2013 to deliver projects and programmes that help control Newcastle Disease.

The support from a group of Palladium employees in Australia, who donated the value of their Christmas hampers to the fundraiser, enabled them to provide ten vaccinators with bikes.

“It is incredible and heartwarming to see Palladium team members choosing to support our projects,” Frantzen adds. “The value of just 3 hampers bought 1 bike, and it was great to be able to buy 10 bikes and help 10 vaccinators reach more communities.”

In Malawi’s villages, the distance between healthy poultry and an empty coop can be one missed vaccination. By helping vaccinators travel faster and farther, donors are backing a community-run system that turns prevention into resilience one pedal stroke at a time.