A few weeks ago, I spent a lot of time in the primary school working on health promotion. I developed a work plan for the rest of the school year with the director of the school. I am starting with the basics, but also the most important, especially for kids. Hand washing and basic hygiene. 2,000,000 kids a year under the age of 5 die from diarrhea. In Peru, kids have 5-10 episodes of diarrhea per year. Even if kids are surviving these episodes, have up to 10 several-day episodes of diarrhea a year is equivalent to not eating for 2 months a year. Washing hands and basic hygiene has been proven to be the best way to prevent diarrhea. It was reported in 2005 that only 6% of families in Peru washed hand with soap, even though 97% of families had some type of soap.
So, my goal in the school was to raise awareness about the importance of hand-washing, drinking secure water, and washing fruits and vegetables. I visited every classroom from preschool to 6th grade to talk about microbes and how they get into our bodies. I did a puppet show about “Miguel the Microbio” and a story about “Maraquita Cochinita” (Dirty Margaret), a hand-washing demonstration, among other fun games. The kids seemed to show interest and hopefully will change their behavior. I don’t think I will have eradicated diarrhea in my community, but hopefully the classroom visits made some difference. Last week, three parents approached me and told me that their kids were insisting that they wash their hands before their meals.
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