What would you do if you wanted to teach a community to wash their hands? Would you start with the children or the adults? And how do you not make it seem incredibly elementary?
I have been asking myself how to teach health lessons to a community, and I have been wondering something in particular. Maybe the best way is to teach the mothers, stressing the importance that it is for the benefit of the children. I think the desire for wanting a better life for your child extends far enough to actually break down some of a person’s pride. Starting from the beginning, perhaps one can teach lessons of basic sanitation (or whatever the topic may be: health, illness prevention, infant development) to a community. The mothers can then enforce it with their children, and ultimately even share it with their husbands.
As I start to consider options for my projects here, this has been one of my ideas. Many educational initiatives already exist working with women (for health, pregnancy, and various things) and children (for overall health education), but few programs address children through the minds/hands/eyes of the mothers.
Greg Mortensen would say that the best way to educate a large group of people is to educate young girls because if you teach a boy, you educate an individual, if you teach a girl, you educate a community. Young girls are more likely to share their knowledge with their mothers and the family than a boy.
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