Children Health Workshops Program
10.05.2019
Children Health Workshops Program
A workshop is a great way for someone to learn about a particular subject, new projects, and methods. Attending workshops can help children achieve success in their academic and health living environment by putting these skills into practice. Therefore, if the child is having trouble studying or perhaps lacking organizational skills, such workshops can assist them. help2kids’ Health Program have been using workshops as the most effective advocacy and behavior change tool in our health projects for four years now.
Background
help2kids started the Health Program as one of its biggest projects. We support kids from underprivileged environments to have access to best health care. The project has four partners which are Children’s Home, Kunduchi Daycare Center, Chakuwama and Watoto Wetu orphanages. In 2015, the Health Manager came up with an idea of workshop for kids and caregivers after the number of hospital visit increased daily. The number of kids visiting the hospital per day was around 15 -18 children per day.
The way Program works
After having a serious discussion with the partners on the number of hospital visit increasing, the team decided to conduct small research. The research revealed that 80% of the diseases can be prevented by healthy lifestyle. This drove the team to come up with workshop program.
The team realized starting workshops will be a big opportunity to reach the community directly. Another factor was advocacy and promoting behavioral change. We believe children are the future and if we want to change the community, we start with children. Apart from kids’ workshops the team conducted workshops for the caregivers and community at large as well.
The workshops are based on simple health tips and topics to help a child live a healthy life. The choices of topic are based mostly on age and academic level. For kids under the age of ten common topics are WASH (Water Sanitation and Hygiene). Essentially the team together with doctors or health facilitators teaches the kids personal hygiene and nutrition in very simple way.
For kids above ten we go extra mile by teach them about sexual reproduction, metro hygiene and HIV/AIDS. Also we teach the kids how to make reusable pads since most of the kids cannot afford to buy pads.
Effectiveness of the Program
Workshops have been a very successful strategy to increase children’s academic performance. A good example is Kunduchi Daycare Center. The number of kids joining primary school has increase by 100%. Last year all the kids were qualified to join standard one. Also the hospital visit has been decrease by 90% since children who visit hospital per day is 1 to 3 per day. In some days we do not have any hospital visits at all.
Challenges
Limited funds have made it impossible to conduct more workshops as intended. Last year the team was able to conduct four workshops for each of our partners, one for parents and four for the caregivers includes the teachers. This year the team has intended to conduct at least one workshop each quarter for the parents and care givers. It is the team’s desire to be able to cover at least four topics for each group of children each year but at the end of the year the topics covered per each age group is one or two.
Despite the target of four workshops for parents and four for children, the team managed to conduct only one workshop for the kids so far this year. We were not able to continue with training for reusable pad as intended since we could not afford to provide material and facilitators.
We want to invite all local and international supporters to join us in making this program possible. Please click here to donate today. For more information write to us info@help2kids.org.