Eye Health & Good Vision Message Six

This message and lesson plan is from our Children’s Participation in Eye Health and the Promotion of Good Vision resource book for teachers and educators. Read more about the book and download it now!

Message Six

Millions of parents all over the world take their children to be immunised to make sure they are safe, strong and protected from diseases like measles that can harm the eyes.

Learning Objectives

• Children will know and feel able to share the message on Immunisation.
• Children can describe five or more important facts about Immunisation and one of these should be that a measles vaccine protects a child’s eye health.
• Children have been involved in the telling of a story, making a speech or writing a letter that demonstrates accurate knowledge about the importance of immunisation.
• Children have planned a question they can ask at family level to raise awareness about the need for immunisation.

Steps

1. Introductory activities, e.g. an icebreaker, game or The Memory Line.
2. Teach and repeat the Immunisation message adding actions.
3. Activity: Story telling
   • Tell the children this story and ask them to practice telling it and developing it in pairs or threes.

Peter lives in a big city. His family always eats lots of rice and some meat. Peter never eats green vegetables or yellow fruits or vegetables. He starts to find it hard to see properly in the evening. He has too little vitamin A in his body.

His sister, who is three-years-old, catches measles. Neither Peter nor his sister have been immunised. A friend, who is a teacher, comes to visit the family to help them. She asks Peter’s mother what the children eat. When the teacher hears that the children do not eat vegetables and fruit, she advises their mother to improve their diet and to quickly take the children to the clinic for immunisation.

After adding more nutritious foods to their diets, Peter and gets stronger and the teacher ask him to tell his class the story. He advises his classmates to eat plenty of colourful, natural foods and get immunised to save their eyesight and prevent suffering from diseases.

• • Select one or two groups to tell their stories and discuss what the story teaches us about immunisation for eye health.

Reflection Circle

In a circle, the children say in turn what they learned and enjoyed about this session.

Closing Activity

Repeat the message together and ask those that know the message to share it with classmates, friends and family.

Extension Activity

1. In pairs or threes, children can imagine they are ten years older. They write a letter to their parents, from their older selves, thanking them for their immunisations and all the things they did for their health.
2. Remind the children to imagine the things they want to do and how important it is to be healthy and protect their eye health and how immunisation is an important part of that.
3. Children read out the letters and the whole group discusses the letters.

Follow-on: Children can share the letters with their parents and friends. They can help to lead this activity at school. The letter can also become a text for a speech made at a school or community event.

Download Children’s Participation in Eye Health
and the Promotion of Good Vision now!