Hygiene Made Fun!

The GRT-I node continues to show its commitment to bettering the lives of the poor in their community. We identify gaps in the community, no matter how little to make to provide an education and make an impact.

We introduced the ‘Citizen Science’ initiative to our community, with a particular emphasis on hand hygiene and water education. This is to highlight the little, yet effective ways to maintain good health.
Helping to building healthy habits at a tender age, we focused on pre-scholars and primary school kids. We all remember the 20 seconds ‘happy birthday’ tune we sang while washing hands, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our participants were singing their lungs out while practising how to wash their hands clean.
Nothing brings energy and excitements than “magic” to a kid. Using that fact to our advantage, we performed some exciting experiments with them. By allowing students to explore the presence of germs through touch plates and the Glo-germ challenge, we were able to get the message across. This involved applying Glo-germ cream to hands and revealing hidden germs under UV light, demonstrating the effectiveness of handwashing.
The concern on their faces when the Glo-germ cream would not remove from regular washing will forever remind them of the importance of thoroughly washing their hands. We are certain handwashing and hygiene will be a concern for them going forward. We left beaming faces excited and informed about hygiene. Some even excited about the science of it, we are looking forward to the future scientists from that group.

We concluded the session with some lunch and various fun games and activities.
Our little heroes left with exciting prizes for participation, and pamphlets containing information about hand hygiene and water-related topics, and our SAPRIN GRT-I study. This was a brilliant way of connecting the educational sessions to the door-to-door surveys conducted by the team, ensuring that awareness is flowing.