School Health and Hygiene for Mayan Children

Around this time last year, we celebrated the launch of the Pueblo a Pueblo and Colgate’s partnership for the “Brilliant Smiles, Brilliant Futures” campaign. Just to recap, the campaign is an initiative to equip young children with toothbrushes, toothpastes and enable healthy habits.

Our Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) team spent months meticulously creating and counting oral hygiene kits. The partnership is growing, along with the excitement around it, as well as the amount of beneficiaries. This time around we were able to provide 6,930 students from 56 schools with hygiene kits, approximately 3,000 more than last year.  

Although the purpose of this event is to make toothbrushes and toothpaste available to kids, this partnership goes beyond brushing. The partnership promotes personal hygiene as a tool for academic, personal and social success.

“When a kid feels confident in her autonomy and practices it through oral hygiene upkeep, she feels more empowered to have autonomy over other aspects of her life, including academics,” says Carlos Soberanis, Colgate Ambassador.

Directors from our beneficiary schools attended the workshop led by Colgate and Pueblo a Pueblo during which we offered tips the directors could use schools to encourage good hygiene. They also learned proper brushing techniques and explained the health consequences of not establishing an oral hygiene routine at a young age-- all with the hopes that the directors would be inspired to return to their school with the hygiene kits and the understanding of the importance of brushing.

“It’s important to collaborate with the directors of the schools because they have authority to encourage the implementation of what they learn at the workshop,” says Pablo Eulogio, the Pueblo a Pueblo WASH coordinator.

This partnership aligns with our WASH mission because it recognizes and reinforces the relationship between preventative health, hygiene and the success of our students. Thanks for your support!