Michelle Omollo and health club of Kisumu school
Loading...
Authors
Patrick Meinhardt
Issue Date
28/06/2017
Type
Language
en
Keywords
Water and Sanitation
Alternative Title
Abstract
A safe pair of hands Location: Michelle Omollo lives in Obunga and is a member of her health club at her school. Health clubs are common in schools across Kenya and are important because they provide vital knowledge about hygiene and handwashing. Michelle and students just like her become health champions and teach their fellow students about handwashing and good hygiene. They also take this knowledge home and share it with their families, friends and neighbours. This spread of knowledge is vital in improving the health of communities. Health clubs learn through song, dance and taught lessons. My name is Michelle Omollo. I am 12 years old and I have been at this school for eight years. I am in class 7. I live in Obunga. I live with my parents, my four sisters and two brothers. In school, instead of just sitting there and seeing my friends being hurt, they were in and out of school a lot because of diarrhea, I wanted to have that knowledge to be able to teach other people. When we are sick, we lose a lot of time at school. I can see everyday that people are off school because they are sick. It’s usually stomach problems. I have been off school for stomach problems. I have told my Mother about everything I learnt in health club and now, every morning, she makes sure that she boils our water before drinking. She doesn’t want us to be sick. Even my sisters, they now make sure they wash their hands before eating and after visiting the toilet. When I went to the countryside, I told a friend. She was eating bananas and she gave me one to eat. I told her to wash her hands and I told her some other things that I have learnt in health club. When I am in health club, we learn songs and it is interesting. I want to be a journalist when I grow up. I love it, when you explore and learn about things so you can take the news to the people. When we don’t have good toilets, it’s very shameful. When they were bad before [at the school] when you went to the toilet and came back to class, it was like you could still smell the toilet. As a health club member, I clean the toilets.
Description
Citation
Publisher
License
All Rights Reserved