EGYPT: Egypt's launches health campaign for children

Record ID: 346900

  • Title: EGYPT: Egypt's launches health campaign for children
  • Date: 20th February 2014
  • Summary: CAIRO, EGYPT (FEBRUARY 18, 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF GARBAGE DUMP NEXT TO RESIDENTIAL SLUM CHILDREN PLAYING IN GARBAGE DUMP GARBAGE DUMP BY RESIDENTIAL SLUM ANIMALS AND PEOPLE PASSING BY GARBAGE DUMP CAIRO, EGYPT (RECENT - FEBRUARY 8, 2014) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF ORPHANAGE SIGN OUTSIDE ORPHANAGE READING IN ARABIC: "NEW WOMEN CHARITY ASSOCIATION" ORPHANS AND CAMPAIGN ORG
  • Embargoed: 7th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Egypt
  • Country: Egypt
  • Topics: Education,General,Health,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAS5GJQHSXIOH92EVE9FSO44PS
  • Story Text: A new initiative in Egypt aims to raise its population's awareness of the link between preventable diseases and poor sanitation -- by starting with the children.
    Poor sanitation, along with overpopulation, poverty and widespread illiteracy, have contributed to an increase in health problems for residents living in slums around Cairo, where garbage dumps are a common playground for children and a breeding ground for diseases.
    According to Protect Your Child, under-5 mortality rate per year in Egypt is 42,000 children and of that 11% is attributed to pneumonia, a disease contracted due to bad hygiene and pollution. The disease may be prevented through awareness, something the country is currently lacking.
    Realising this problem, neurosurgeon Mohamed Za'azoue created "Healthy Egyptians", a campaign targeting underprivileged children to raise health awareness at a young age.
    The 700-volunteer strong campaign employs various methods that are simple and appealing to children to help get the information across.
    The initiative has garnered Za'azoue the honour of being chosen as one of the most influential people under 30 by Forbes magazine. His idea was influenced by the lack of awareness in the Egyptian education curriculum.
    "This (education) created a wrong impression within the Egyptian society that health awareness is restricted only to doctors and 'if I get tired I just visit the doctor; if I'm not sick I will never try and read or educate myself or my children concerning health awareness.' This made the situation difficult for anyone trying to spread the idea of health awareness and change the wrong sociological traditions, in the sense of making Egyptians more aware," he said.
    "Egyptians do not have a need and they do not feel that receiving health awareness is an important thing. So I decided that if we would like to spread health awareness or change this wrong norm, we have to employ innovative methods and new means through which people will be attracted towards us as opposed to us reaching out to them for a thing they believe is not vital," Za'azoue explained.
    "We don't even have a subject at school called health awareness. Some people may say that for health awareness to be introduced in schools it needs to be carefully studied, in the sense that curriculum has to be devised, teachers need to be trained and then the material needs to be distributed to different parts of Egypt. This is not true though. From my limited experience with the several thousand families we reached out to and through the evaluation of several international organisations that awarded [Healthy Egyptians] over our work, the health awareness subjects in schools could be introduced through a simple and easy colouring book. We don't have to device an unbelievable and advanced curriculum or work on raising these children to become doctors, or teach them to memorise every known disease. All we have to do is teach them how to colour with the presence of a teacher who truly wants to make them more aware, [a teacher] who gives them simple information and hidden messages which should be present in the drawings in the colouring book," he added.
    Every week a number of volunteers would visit a nursery, a sporting club or a slum to educate the children on preventable health hazards.
    During a visit to the New Women Charity Association, an orphanage, volunteers showed children an informative cartoon and handed out colouring books with health awareness messages.
    Head of the campaign Yousra Fahmy said that the children usually give positive feedback and the simple teaching methods allow the children to fully grasp the intended messages.
    "Of course [difficulty is faced] sometimes that there are very young children who we try and deliver the message to and keep them quiet, but thank god most of the places we went to, whether sporting clubs or slums, schools or nurseries, we usually ask the children and we have documented their feedback. Some mothers also did not have any idea what Pneumonia is and after the campaign we receive feedback which allowed them to show us what they had learnt," said Fahmy.
    "The children in public and private schools have to have part of the curriculum specified to awareness and what health awareness means. It does not have to be with complicated diseases but only an idea. Pneumonia is the most lethal disease to children under five years old. Preventing that disease is very easy and is easily available here in Egypt. When one segment of education is directed to teach children how to protect themselves and their families from this disease, it will be a major success," added the sixth year medical student.
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