Mobile Clinics and Vaccination Drives: Share the Site

A mobile clinic is useful only when people can find it. The team may park a truck beside a school gate on Monday, a market square on Tuesday and a mosque courtyard on Wednesday. Announcing "near the main square" leaves families walking in the heat, unsure whether they are in the right place. A UPCS code announces the exact point instead: it takes anyone who opens it to the spot you picked, a 3 m x 3 m square.

The problem for organisers

Temporary health sites have no permanent address. Villages and informal neighbourhoods often have no street names, and several places can share a descriptive label such as "the market". Organisers also pass the message through volunteers, local leaders and radio notices, which can only carry a short phrase. A mismatch of even a few hundred metres can mean that the people most in need do not find the team.

What the code gives you

Choose the set-up point on the UPCS map, zoom in, and pick where the vehicle or tent will stand. You receive a short code in the format CC-XXXX-XXXX. That is short enough to read on a radio notice, print on a poster, or send in a message. Anyone who enters it in the search box on upcs.io, or opens upcs.io/<code>, sees the exact location with Open in Map and Get Directions.

Using it in a campaign

• Posters and flyers: print the code and a short place name side by side.
• Messages: send the share link in group chats used by community leaders.
• Schedule sheet: keep a table of day, time and code for each stop, so the team and the volunteers read from one list.
• Recurring stops: the same location gives the same code, so a weekly site keeps one stable code.
• Digital forms: if you run a registration page, embed the map and let staff select the site; the result includes the code, coordinates and a share link.

Practical tips

1. Pick the exact entrance or the spot where the queue will form, not the middle of a large compound.
2. Choose a point reachable on foot for people with limited mobility, and note ramps or shade nearby.
3. Say the code aloud in announcements and ask a volunteer to read it back, so a mistyped character is caught.
4. Add a landmark as a helpful extra for people who are more comfortable with places than codes.

UPCS is not a medical or emergency system, does not connect to health systems and does not replace official notices; it is an exact-location code that sits beside them. Similar planning applies to ambulance and home healthcare, NGOs and humanitarian work and events and festivals.