strengthen hand washing to 800 children in Rwanda

Program: hygiene, water and sanitation

Activity: Hand washing education session

Assigned responsible: pacifique Ndayishimiye, hygiene water and sanitation director.

Participants: pacifique, Gloria, Darius

Date:5th october 2011

Place : Nyanza primary school

the session started by introduction for the volunteers who are going to conduct the session with students, we start with the IP darius and the others we continue telling them who we are, where we are coming from, what we are coming to do and what we normally do in our daily life and we find that we are all students as them which will help us to share more on hand washing.

The topic of the day was HAND WASHING, this is chosen because we are approaching the hand washing day of 15^th October of each year the title for us is WASH HAND WITH SOAP SAVE LIVES. The research shows that Diarrhea and pneumonia kill 4 million of children under 5 years old each year. Children from the poorest 20% household are more than 10 times as likely to die as children from the richest 20%of households. Hands are the principal carriers of diseases-causing germs basing on scientific research and intensively monitored trials at both households and schools level it is estimated that handwashing could avert 1 million of those deaths. This is why we are focusing on the hand washing for children which the aim is to promote hand washing practices this is the single cost effective health intervention for children helping with their parents. In the session we discussed with the children 3 main period where it is very important to wash our hands but not with water only but using a soap which help us to remove all germs that can cause diarrhea diseases and all diseases which relate to low hygiene related diseases. Those 3 period are 1.after using the latrine 2.befor eating 3.after cleaning a children. In the session we focused also on the educating them the importance of hand washing and the consequences of not cleaning our hands and we focused on the diseases which caused by low hygiene practices which affect more the children and their mothers.

i attached also the pictureswhile children are discussing on the hand washing practices.

Output:-children identified 3 periods where it is very important to wash our hands.

             -Each student identified a disease which cause the diarrhea and other low hygiene related diseases

           -posters distribution for the hand washing awareness raising for student and teachers while educating children

Challenge:-a low number of posters to give to students so that they can go with them at their home to tell their siblings about what they learned.