Blog, Mission Possible, Aug 2016. From washing hands to new stationery.
Blog, Mission Possible, Aug 2016. From washing hands to new stationery.
On the sixth day of their deployment to Tanzania, our Mission Possible volunteers got to enjoy one of the days they had most anticipated - delivering health and sanitation awareness sessions and distributing new stationery to local schoolchildren. More than 250 children have benefited because of the generosity of our supporters, as Akeel Iqbal and Navid Kaleem explain.
Akeel Iqbal: After a hard day of manual labour yesterday, today was the day I was looking forward to. We went to two villages, Mzambarauni and Ubangaa, to give training, distribute mosquito nets and school stationery.
In Mzambarauni, we gave two training sessions back-to-back to the school children. The first session was on sanitation and cleanliness - this was due to the building of the new school toilets and sinks for school children to wash their hands. The sanitation part of the training consisted of the importance of using clean water, the proper disposal of human waste and diseases linked to dirty water.
The session also contained a method of how to wash your hands correctly. We got the schoolchildren to also get involved in this activity and show us the correct method of washing hands after we showed them how.
The second training session was on malaria prevention, where we explained to the children that malaria is a worldwide killer. In this training session we spoke about how mosquitos breed and how we can prevent the breeding of mosquitos, as well as what mosquitos are attracted to. We then provided some solutions to the schoolchildren of how to protect themselves from being bitten.
After the two training sessions we distributed mosquito nets (treated with insecticide) and stationery to the 68 schoolchildren in Mzambarauni. We also carried out a training session in Ubangaa on malaria prevention which consisted of the same content as the session in Mzambarauni. In Ubangaa we distributed 184 mosquito nets and stationery for 184 students.
I had planned both training sessions, so I was looking forward to delivering these sessions to the pupils. The children were really happy with the stationery which they received with eagerness. All in all an excellent day.
Navid Kaleem: We started the day at Mzambarauni village, providing the sanitation and malaria prevention training to the 68 schoolchildren there. There was also the distribution of mosquito nets and stationery with each child receiving a plastic wallet, five books, pens, pencils, ruler, rubber and sharpener.
Just before noon we provided the malaria prevention training at Ubangaa school. Here we provided mosquito nets and stationery to 184 children. The children were very well behaved and disciplined. I wonder what they could achieve if given half the opportunity our youngsters get back home. They sang a beautiful and memorable song for us.
Late afternoon we popped back to Mzambarauni village offering brief support on the school renovation, working on the concrete floor and guttering system.
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