Tomorrow is World Malaria Day 2023!
When I go around the world I often ask teachers and other health educators what would help and support them best in their health education work. In particular, work where they are getting children on their feet; helping them to understand, take action and reflect on what THEY can do to help prevent Malaria, prevent HIV, prevent Intestinal Worms, prevent Diarrhoea or PROMOTE a good diet and happiness, and development of young children etc…
and what they tell me is… “we want POSTERS!”
and with a bit of arm twisting they will also say… “and STORYBOOKS!”
This is because teachers already KNOW how to use posters and storybooks and they feel confident and comfortable with them. Many, if not MOST, of the teachers I’ve worked with are much BETTER storytellers than me as they are more practiced. It’s a big part of what they do in classrooms, especially in communities where televisions, and even radios, are scarce.
Give teachers a beautifully crafted Teacher’s Guide and you can almost hear the inward groan! This is because a Teacher’s Guide means they have to take the time to read it, grasp something new and unfamiliar, and battle to find time for the new lessons or the new activities. There will have to be meetings between management and staff to discuss how to fit new things into an already overcrowded curriculum and they will be afraid to fail.
As part of a well-planned program a Teacher’s Guide can be GREAT, most especially when they are endorsed by the government and when it’s come along with high-quality training (preferably a series of training sessions) and teachers feel that they will be recognized for the effort they put in to master this new good practice around unfamiliar content or approach.
But posters and storybooks need very little introduction and have the capacity to spark creativity in teachers as they already know about different ways to share a story or show and use a poster and ultimately, help children learn the messages from these materials. There are many mini ‘touch points’ in the day when teachers can work with children: showing them the poster, getting the children to stand up and talk about it or share a page or two of a story and then discuss it with their friends. It’slight, fun work for the teacher and the children, but this does not mean it lacks depth!
TODAY we are reminding our various networks and communities about our poster on Malaria. On the front, everyone can read the messages and look at the cartoons and on the back, they can read the FAQs on ‘How to use the Poster’. You can download the poster for free now!
https://www.childrenforhealth.org/MalariaPoster
We would LOVE to develop a storybook too so please get in touch if you can think of ways to help us raise the funding for this.
CHIFA profile: Clare Hanbury is director of Children for Health (www.childrenforhealth.org). She qualified as a teacher in the UK and then worked in schools in Kenya and Hong Kong. After an MA in Education in Developing Countries and for many years, Clare worked for The Child-to-Child Trust based at the University of London’s Institute of Education where, alongside Hugh Hawes and Professor David Morley she worked to help embed the Child-to-Child ideas of childrens participation in health – into government and non-government child health and education programmes in numerous countries. Clare has worked with these ideas alongside vulnerable groups of children such as refugees and street children. Since her MSc in International Maternal and Child Health, Clare has worked freelance and focuses on helping government and non-government programmes to design and deliver child-centered health and education programmes where children are active participants. Clare has worked in many countries in East and Southern Africa and in Pakistan, Cambodia and the Yemen. Her current passion is for distilling health information for teachers, health workers and others – into simple practical health messages actionable by children. clare AT childrenforhealth.org
