Healthy living

Our Centre day this month focussed on healthy living to prevent disease and infection. Physical development and health is a key component of our holistic development goal for these children. We had the usual activities which included prayer, sports and games, a snack and then the health talks.

We hosted a medical worker ( A trained nurse) who has worked in a child care NGO for a long time and has experience in children's health issues. One of our volunteers spoke to the young ones aged 6-10 while the nurse spoke separately with the 11-16 age group. She later separated the older children and spoke to the girls alone on issues of sexual and reproductive health.

One of the upcoming issues is that the problem of water scarcity is greatly affecting our children in their quest to exercise good hygiene. Almost all the households we support dont have running water in their homes. They go to fetch from one source which serves about 4 villages! Some children have to walk 3 km and, in the dry season, older ones walk up to 10 kilometres to fetch water! When its scarce, its sold expensively which makes it hard for the families to afford what is enough for the whole family. This results in absenteeism as children miss school because they have no water to wash their uniforms or cook on some days.

We are looking for a funder to partner with so that we buy water tanks for the most affected villages. This is the most feasible intervention. These tanks store a lot of water in the rainy season which can be used for several months.

Here are some images of our day...