The following post is by a fellow Drake University student named Riley Poe. I was lucky to work with him on some of his prep work for the workshop he was planning to complete as his project for the Drake University Uganda Summer Seminar (a 6-credit course through Drake). He spent a great deal of time and effort planning for a workshop on proper hand-washing procedures and their significance. After presenting this workshop in Kikandwa, here's what he had to say about his learning experience:
In
the United States, it is expected to have soap, running water and either paper
towel or an air dyer in just about every bathroom. However, in other places
around the world, specifically developing countries, this is not always the
case. I proceeded to conduct some internet research that would inform me about the
situation surrounding hand-washing in Uganda.
In a matter of minutes, I found some staggering statistics straight from
the New Vision which is the main
government newspaper in Uganda that I would like to highlight. The first was
that “only 28% of the 34 million Ugandans have access to hand washing
facilities” and the second was that “only one in four or 25% of people in
Uganda wash their hands with soap and water after using the toilet”(Ogwang
2013). These statistics were
mindboggling to me coming from the United States where just about everyone has
access to hand-washing facilities. However, it was not these statistics that
motivated me to do this project. It was the facts that showed how devastating
not washing your hands can be and ultimately how many people and specifically
children die as a result of not washing their hands.
From
this little bit of research, I began to draft a project proposal that would
focus on the importance of hand washing in stopping the spread of preventable
sicknesses such as colds and diarrhea.
After some debate, I decided that my project would be most beneficial if
the information was presented to a community of people; children and adults
together. After spending two weeks in Uganda observing and taking notes, I
found hand-washing facilities were sparse and hand-washing practices were
almost non-existent. The only places
that had soap, running water and a way of drying your hands other than your
pants were hotels, restaurants and upper-class homes. Since being in country, I
had been planning my presentation and talking with Makarere University Business
School (MUBS) students to get their opinions and suggestions on how I should
present the information I wanted to.
Sunday
June 9 was the groundbreaking of the Kikandwa Health Clinic and also the day
that I would give my presentation on hand-washing to members of the rural
village. I was prepared with a good basis of information that I wanted to
present to the audience that included what I had attained from the newspaper article
and what I got from the MUBS students I spoke to. Along with the informative portion of the
presentation, I also wanted to give a demonstration of good hand washing and
leave time for a question and answer session at the end.
Finally,
it was my time to shine. Amazingly, I
had an audience of around 50 community members total attend my workshop
presentation; 35 children and 15 adults. I started off with informing them of
the statistics I found in the New Vision article, explaining why hand washing
is so imperative for good health, told them when and how you should wash your
hands. Then, I demonstrated good hand washing techniques. After a presentation and demonstration that
lasted for about ten minutes I opened the floor for questions and surprisingly
received a boatload of very good questions from the audience members. The
questions I received were mostly related to hand washing and other health practices,
but some questions were about food preservation and what you should and
shouldn’t eat. After answering these
questions to the best of my ability and with the help of Ratiibu’s translation,
I passed out a handout to each audience member that stated when you should wash
your hands and also showed the techniques for washing your hands correctly. The
workshop concluded with one the adult community members thanking me for coming
followed by a huge applause from the rest of the audience. This made me feel as though my presentation
had an impact on them.
Overall,
I believe that this presentation was very successful, but as with anything
there are some aspects of it could have been improved. The main thing that made the presentation
difficult was the language barrier between me and the adults in the audience
many of whom only spoke the native language and knew little or no English. For
the most part, I was able to overcome this with the help of my friend Ratiibu,
a MUBS student, who was able to translate everything. This aspect could have
been improved by me by having more direct communication with the children in
the audience who do indeed know some English.
When questioned were asked, I should have told them what the question
was and then answered it for them in English before Ratiibu translated in to
the native language. The second thing that could have been improved was the
handout. These handouts, although they did
include some pictures, were in English.
Looking back, these handouts would likely have been more effective if
they included more pictures and were in the native language rather than
English.
Stepping
back and looking at the sustainability of hand washing practices as a whole has
taken some critical examination and thought. Hand washing is something that is
a fairly simple task that can have a giant impact on the overall health of an
individual. If the members of the community have taken to heart what I have
taught them they will become more economically, socially and environmentally
sustainable. Economically, they will
have the chance to farm more and thus make more profits because they are
healthier. Socially, healthier people will be able to attain an education,
sustain good family lives and be active members in a democratic government. The environment can be improved because the
education can provide famers with more ecofriendly farming methods. As you can
see, the economy, society and the environment can all directly benefit from the
practice and habit of hand washing.
In
the future, I hope that someone else will pick up this project and continue to
educate people in Uganda about hand-washing and how important it is to their
health. I would suggest to them that
they do a similar set-up to what I did, but maybe perform more than one
workshop and do them in different locations (i.e. schools). They might even look into providing cheap soap
or hand sanitizer to Ugandans. I believe their efforts should focus on washing
your hands after using the bathroom. At
the rural village, there was never anything outside the bathroom that you could
wash your hands with.
Through
doing this project I believe that I learned a lot about the hand-washing
culture in Uganda and gained many valuable experiences through my interactions
with the MUBS students and members of the community during this whole project.
I truly hope that the members of the community who attended my workshop benefit
and become healthier as a result. I
would be extremely interested to see how the hand washing behaviors and culture
were affected by my workshop. This fall, I hope to keep working with things
involving hand washing in conjunction with the ongoing health clinic
building. I would like to look into
things like getting hand sanitizer to the rural village so that water is not
needed for proper sanitization of hands. By dealing with such a simple topic, I
have finally realized how truly privileged we are to live in American and have
access to things like hand washing facilities.
References
Ogwang , J.
(2013, March 22). Only 28% of Ugandans have access to hand-washing
facilities. Retrieved from
http://www.newvision.co.ug/news/640928-only-28-of-ugandans-have-access-to-hand-washing-facilities.html
