Handwashing & Health for 2000 Children in Nigeria

Dear donors,

It is always a pleasure to write to you. And it is with your support that we have continued to implement this handwashing and hygiene education project for children in primary schools.

So far, since beginning in February 2019, the Kaduna team have covered 3 local government areas (Chikun, Zaria and Kaduna North), and impacted over 1200 children and 55 teachers (30 of these teachers have been enrolled as sustainability partners). 

General Updates:

There was a delay in executing in the third LGA due to the elections in Nigeria and some attendant post-election violence in Kaduna State. Also, due to increased kidnapping incidents in the area, Kajuru LGA will be replaced with Igabi LGA considering the present security situation in that location. The Scout and Logistics Manager consideration before selecting Igabi LGA such as the current peaceful environment and safety of the Volunteers and partners. The cost of running the project in Igabi will be the same as Kajuru.

Key Lessons Learnt:

• While facilitating the hygiene education session we realized that some pupils could understand all that is been done especially using the poem to learn the procedures.
• Compare to the Zaria LGA where the project was first executed, the learning and assimilation level of pupils in Chikun and Kaduna North LGA is totally different and positive making our work very easy.
• During the Session we observed that the Pupils were quite intelligent and basically took down notes of our activities, Particularly Jegila Ibrahim a pupil in Primary 2, we were amazed by seeing the details of what she wrote down in a short period of time.

Challenges:

• It was quite difficult locating some of the schools due to remote locations however we eventually did.
• In Ahmadu Bello Stadium LGEA Primary School, it was quite difficult teaching the kids with English Lnaguage as many of them understands only Hausa.
• Most schools didn’t have a school hall hence we had to use the school compound or a larger class room for the program.
• One of the Schools in our schedule for the project execution turned us down and we had to replace it with Solid Base International schools to help maintain the 5 slots per LGA.

Recommendation:

1. The Implementation team should subsequently plan to have two hand washing session in schools were there are no halls this is aimed at enabling pupils participate actively during the hand washing demonstration.
2. The Implementation team should have someone who interpret in the language the kids understands during the hand washing demonstration/procedure in Ahmadu Bello Stadium LGEA Primary School.

 Quotes from Students/Teachers:

"We are glad you brought this to our school for this little ones to learn the importance of Hand washing. God bless you all." Sim Ngam, Teacher

‘Thank you for coming to our school to teach us the Hand washing procedure” Mohammed Saleh (Primary One)

“We loved the poem on Hand washing kindly teach us more poems” Adulraham Adulwaheed (Primary Two)