Dear supporters, family and friends of Serendipity,
October 15 was Global Hand washing Day, with it came a clarion call that to beat the COVID 19 virus today and ensure better health outcomes beyond the pandemic, hand hygiene must be a priority now and in the future.
Today, nearly half of the schools in Kano and indeed across the country Nigeria lack hand washing facilities with water and soap, affecting over thirteen million school-age children. Also primary healthcare facilities in our rural communities have no hand washing facilities in the areas where patients receive care or near the toilets. Without access to safe water and sanitation services and effective hygiene protocols, many of our schools, health services and other public spaces will continue to be limited. This means that there is a clear and present danger if we do not put in all measures to ensure that hand hygiene is a priority there will be devastation in the event of any outbreak.
With your kind donations, we provided access to water in Kurekeni community in Kumbotso Local Government Council by installing three tube wells and provided WASH materials, temperature checker, face masks, face shield, WASH points and trainings to a primary and secondary school in Kano Municipal prioritizing of hand hygiene for all.
Emphasis has always been on good hand hygiene practices in all the communities we have worked on even prior to the coming of the COVID 19 pandemic as we have successfully delivered hand hygiene services to over 2500 school age children creating a behavior change to them keeping their hands clean at all times to stop diseases.
More Investment is needed to scale work that we have done thus far for a supply of access to clean water and hand hygiene services. We can only achieve this through your continued partnership and would like to say a big thank you for the trust and support thus far showed to us.
You can follow us on our social media handles Instagram/serendipityHea1, twitter/@serendipityHea1, Facebook/serenhealthcare, LinkedIn/serendipity-healthcare-foundation for more updates.
Best Regards,
Samirah Faruk
Links:
Dear supporters, family and friends of Serendipity,
Schools in Kano resumed today and not much can be said about how schools are handling the protocols to making our children stay safe because they do not have the required resources to ensure that all the protocols are followed through. The local government councils and State governments that are saddled with ensuring that COVID 19 relief materials are in place in our schools have done only a quarter of distribution of temperature test kit, Face masks, hand sanitizers and WASH materials.
In line with our #StaySafe campaign to ensure our children are safe as they return to school, from Gadan Tudun Fulani in our last visit to schools we went to Government Girls Secondary School, Minjibir Zone in the same Ungogo Local Governing Council in Kano.
Our findings showed that the school had nothing in place in terms of keeping the girls safe as they resumed school thus we distributed temperature test kits, WASH materials, Water points, Face Masks, hand sanitizers and the girls were also taught how to wash their hands properly and how to wear face masks properly.
Further findings revealed that the school also is lacking in toilets and classrooms for the students with a population of 2000 students and staff strength of 15. The toilets are in a bad shape and the classrooms are just four in number and the girls are cramped up in these classes leaving them exposed.
A call to action to invest in the provision of WASH points, WASH items, Hand Sanitizers, face masks and toilets for this school and other schools as it cuts across most of our schools in rural communities and with your continued support we can do much more for our communities.
Thank you for your continued trust in us to make a change in our communities and making better lives.
Best Regards,
Samirah Faruk
Links:
Dear supporters, family and friends of Serendipity,
Living life in the “New Normal” can be difficult when states are not ready to curtail a second wave of the COVID 19 outbreak if it occurs. It is thus of utmost importance that measures are put in place to help protect community members. The pandemic has affected several aspects of our lives and education of our children is one of them as a break in learning has impacted heavily upon the child which has been occasioned with the pandemic. Now with the reopening of our schools, it is of utmost importance to STAY SAFE as Water and Hygiene facilities are a crucial and critical part of schools reopening.
Prior to the coming of the pandemic, one of Serendipity’s key goals is to ensure that our communities and children are not vulnerable to water borne diseases; and thus embarked upon School WASH Programmes in seven schools where we distributed WASH materials, hand washing points and taught over 200 children in primary, junior high and senior high in four local governing councils in Kano on the benefits of good hand washing practices in preventing them from falling ill, being vulnerable to water related ailments. School WASH Clubs were formed that will monitor the students adhering to what they were taught as well as exciting programmes to keep them engaged. Progress reports and feedback showed that the children have been practicing what they were taught with the percentage of absence from school dropping from 50% to 20%.
With the coming of COVID 19 we have intensified our efforts in our #StaySafe Campaign teaching school age children on good hand washing and hygiene practices, provision of WASH materials and donation of palliatives in the form of crates of eggs to boost their immunity. Our campaign took us to Hamza Primary and Secondary School in Sabowar Gadan where twenty children were taught on good hand washing practices, respiratory etiquettes (such as coughing and sneezing into the elbow or into a tissue and disposed away) how to properly wear a mask with its usage and physical distances measures.
A call to action to invest in the provision of WASH points, WASH items, Hand Sanitizers, face masks and palliatives such as crates of eggs to boost their immunity is needed and with your support we can do more.
Thank you for your continued trust in us to make a change in our communities and making better lives.
Best Regards,
Samirah Faruk
Links:
Dear supporters, family and friends of Serendipity,
Kano, Nigeria has been grappling with water shortages since independence due to lack of adequate provision of access to water and sanitation facilities? Do you know that each day 1 child in 1000 dies of water related illnesses in rural communities in Kano?
The situation is now critical since the advent of COVID 19 as it has exposed the inadequacies of the state in providing adequate access to water and healthcare facilities in the 44 local governing councils, which has resulted in some strange deaths in the communities, the elderly and children being the most vulnerable.
It is on this premise, we at Serendipity decided that it is not only to provide access to safe clean drinking water but also to provide trainings to school age children on good hand washing and hygiene practices learning how to wash their hands properly, times at which to wash hands and keeping clean, how long they should wash their hands, what to use in the event of no soap, the use of hand sanitizers, and not touching their face frequently.
We took our campaign to Amarzakaya village of Tudun Fulani in Ungogo Local Government Council, one of the project sites where we taught school age children on how to wash their hands properly, keeping themselves clean and the use of hand sanitizers. Children in such communities are the most vulnerable because much concentration is on the urban and peri-urban communities thus leaving out rural communities in terms of interventions.
WASH materials such as bathing soap and powder detergent were distributed to 20 children as well as crates of eggs as palliatives to boost their immunity as eggs contains the necessary amino acids and vitamins for growth and immunity.
We would continue with the distribution of WASH materials, hand sanitizers, palliatives such as eggs and trainings to children and the elderly in rural communities being the most vulnerable as our campaign against community spread of COVID 19 ensuring they know the right way to wash their hands and distribute these items to them. The best way for us to achieve this is your continued support to our project especially now in these trying times of the pandemic.
PREVENTION IS KEY TO ENDING THIS THREAT!!
To learn more about our work, check out our website on www.serendipityhealthcare.ngo become our friend on Facebook/serenhealthcare, LinkedIn/samirahfaruk and follow us on twitter @serendipityHea1 or send us an email for any enquiry or advice.
Best Regards,
Samirah Faruk
Links:
Dear Friends, Family and Supporters of Serendipity Healthcare Foundation,
As part of our resolve to ensure that children practice good handwashing to keep off diseases and ensure they live healthy lives, we have been running a campaign of School Wash Programme for the past three years where we teach junior high and senior high children how to properly wash their hands with soap and how often they need to wash their hands to keep clean. We also taught them on how to conserve water through fun games and role play, we designed a programme for each class with their level of understanding,
Maimuna (not real name) is from Tarauni Model School, one of the first schools where we started our campaign on good hygiene practices and we visited the school last year to measure the impact of our project and we found out that Maimuna has created a WASH Club for the students where she and her team of four are ensuring that what they were taught when we came to their school is being done everyday by the students.
When we asked her why she took up this challenge she said..."Washing my hands always with soap and keeping myself clean has reduced the number of times I fall ill and thus I want to show everybody that washing hands with soap all the time makes you healthy and I am a witness to that in telling my story to other children". She has went further to ask if she can be our ambassador on hygiene and to which we said yes to "A Beautiful Beginning".
We distributed WASH Materials of bathing soap, detergents and washing up liquid to an arm of Junior Secondary School 3 students in the school and did a recap of how important it is to wash your hands properly with soap.
Much work needs to be done as our target of reaching four more schools before the end of the year 2020.
We want to say thank you for your continued support and faith reposed in us to be the organisation that fulfills your goal of paying it forward.
You can follow us on twitter @serendipityHea1 or Like our facebook page/serenhealthcare or LinkedIN Serendipity-healthcare-foundation to learn more about our work.
Best Regards,
Samirah Faruk
Links:
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