A Little Health Learning Goes a Long Way

Kids in Tajikistan are staying healthier after learning proper hygiene practices at summer camps sponsored by Mercy Corps. Photo: Mercy Corps Tajikistan

What do you do with toothpaste?

Before Mercy Corps' summer camp for children here in Garm, a poor, mountainous town five hours from the Tajik capital, campers were befuddled by that question. Some tried swallowing it, says camp director Mirzodavlat Bahromov, because it tasted sweet. But before long, the young campers learned to brush their teeth and adopt other hygiene practices that will keep their bodies healthy.

In Tajikistan, Mercy Corps runs a Health Education program to address the great need for education and preventive measures in 273 communities in the country's most isolated regions. In communities where children often die of diarrhea-related illnesses, preventative health measures can go a long way towards sustaining life. Health Information leaders travel from village to village using various methods of education including family visits, seminars in Chaihanas (tea houses) and mosques, and teaching in schools.

This past summer, Mercy Corps held "healthy living" summer camps for children and orphans in Garm, an isolated region far worse off economically than other areas of Tajikistan and vastly underserved by healthcare facilities. One hospital and one clinic serves the entire Rasht district of more than 600,000 people.

The goal of these camps was to provide children with information about infectious diseases by using the "child-to-child" method of education. This method is particularly useful in getting children adjusted to the habits of hygiene. If one child sees another child washing their hands after using the toilet they are more likely to do that than if an adult tells them its good for them. Another example of children learning from each other is when they learn how to prepare oral re-hydration solution (ORS) in game situation. ORS is one way to cure diarrhea. The camps showed children that they can trust other children as well as encouraged them to improve their health the health of their family and those around them.

Ashobidi, one of the camp attendees, now brushes his teeth every day and washes his hands regularly. "It is important so I won't get sick," he says.

In the two years that Mercy Corps has worked in the Rasht region, rates of infectious disease have declined. In one Rasht village, the owner of the only pharmacy has complained that now he is losing business. People, he says, no longer need his medicines.