We have just heard the following from Save the Children Colleagues in Lagos, Nigeria:
“Two manuals: The Teaching Guide and Activity for Children Handbook, developed for children participation in diarrhoea prevention and control has been endorsed (verbally) by Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board for children health clubs in public primary schools across the State. This is great step in increasing knowledge and skills of children for improve hygiene behaviour and environmental practice to halt diarrhoea disease prevalence.”
These are the two manuals created by Children for Health and revised and developed in four workshops with teachers and head teachers in Somulu. It is GREAT news as it means that the content, the messages and the activities are becoming institutionalised and part of a sustained government initiative. In this way the pilot is being scaled.
This feels to us like the equivalent of winning OLYMPIC GOLD! It is a ringing endorsement of our partnership model with Save the Children and a tribute to the hard-working teachers who contributed so much to the process.
Other good news just in is that:-
“Somolu Local Government Education Authority has committed to retained the trained school health club facilitators for a longer period before any transfer to other school. This will actually lead effective and efficient children health clubs in the school as well as making them health promoting schools.”
This is so helpful as it means the trained teachers can work hard on embedding the approach in schools that have been made aware of it. What can so often happen is that teachers in whom so much has been invested are transferred to schools who are not a part of the programme BEFORE an innovation has had the chance to take root.
Eventually however, we hope that the content and activities will become a part of the training and that way be useful to children and their families for many years to come.