Health
Preventive Health
Programme Content
Modules 1 & 2: Personal Hygiene & Sanitation
The main water and sanitation related diseases are diarrhoeal diseases and those caused by inadequate water supply to maintain good hygiene. These can be easily prevented by providing clean water; effective sanitation and by good hygiene practices.
The keys to prevention are clean water, clean hands at mealtimes and uncontaminated food. Hygiene education programmes are programmes through which communities learn about
- washing hands with soap before touching food
- using latrines
- keeping food and water clean
- cooking food thoroughly
- washing and peeling fruit and vegetables
- the sanitary disposal of waste
All these can help prevent diarrhea and contamination.
Other diseases can be caused by scarce water supply where people cannot wash themselves, their clothes or their homes regularly. These are diseases such as Trachoma (which causes blindness) and Scabies which causes itchy sores and lesions mainly between the fingers, wrists, elbows. Malaria is another disease caused by leaving stagnant water where mosquitoes can breed.
Information disseminated through the workshops covers:
- Safe Water Handling, Collection, Storage
- Washing hands before eating, cooking and after going to the toilet. The importance of bathing and clean clothes
- Washing fruits and vegetables before cutting, keeping cooked food covered and keeping utensils off the ground.
- Information about water and sanitation-related diseases, how easily preventable they are and how important it is to prevent them. They will learn about disease transmission through water and through wrong disposal of human faeces. This is an area of great concern as they are not aware of the importance of this both for themselves and for the environment.
- Going to the toilet at a safe distance from water sources that are used for drinking and cooking.
- Using a sanitary latrine instead of going to the toilet in the bush.
- Making drainage channels or soak pits to take away waste water away from wells and homes.
- Ensuring that animals are kept away from houses, water sources and latrines.
- Sanitary disposal of waste
Module 3: Common Illnesses
- Information regarding common illnesses; their symptoms and treatment;
- Air borne diseases – coughs, common colds, pneumonia, TB, Measles, Diphtheria, Whooping cough;
- Fecal-Oral diseases: Diarrhea, Typhoid, Food poisoning, Dysentery, Cholera, Hepatitis, Polio
Module 4: Food – Nutrition & Hygiene
- Basic nutrition information so that mothers can try to give their children wholesome meals.
Module 5: Maternal & Child Health
- Ante natal information including proper care and nutrition;
- Nutrition for children;
- Information about inoculations, vaccinations
- Information about pediatric medical facilities and services available to the community.
Module 6: HIV AIDS
- Definition
- Symptoms
- How it is contracted / Myths
- How to protect oneself
- Progress of the illness
- Treatment
- Living with AIDS
- Children with AIDS
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