Education

Blog Post:  Posted July 27, 2010, 4:06 pm by Lyndsey Romick

Iraq's Women: Worth the Risk

Country: Iraq

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Governance, Education, Civil Society

Iraq's contentious election has tied its political system in knots. But this isn't stopping Mercy Corps from pursuing one of its main objectives there: making women's voices heard. It's part of our effort to build skills for traditionally disenfranchised groups, as Mercy Corps' Sahar Alnouri said recently at a public event at Mercy Corps' Action Center in Portland.

Alnouri, who's worked in Iraq since early last year, said the election has put everyone on edge. In 2005, post-election sectarian violence displaced millions of Iraqis and left the country in a very sensitive state. Explosions are still common, and people wonder if the fighting will break out again.

The insecurity is the hardest part about working in Iraq, Alnouri said. "You have to be in a constant state of preparedness, even if nothing happens." It's also hard to gather information because travel is dangerous. But these problems don't deter Mercy Corps from helping those who suffer the most from the insecurity: women and girls.

For starters, instability keeps girls from attending school. Parents often shield their daughters from potential danger by keeping them at home. Alnouri helps coordinate Mercy Corps' women's literacy program, which fills an important need in a country where the illiteracy rate is about 30 percent higher for women than it is for men. So far we've helped about 26,000 women how to read and write, as well as lessons in democracy and governance, human and women’s rights, and other key social issues.

Over 18,000 Iraqi women are currently enrolled in our literacy programs. Photo: Alisha Rodriguez/Mercy Corps

But female literacy is only the first step.

The Iraqi constitution is fairly liberal on women's rights, but reality doesn't always match the rhetoric. And with the fledgling Iraqi police force tied up with security matters, women's rights aren't top priority. Alnouri said Mercy Corps programs teach women about their rights, about voting and about their role in a democratic society. As a result, women are becoming more confident -- and more politically aware.

For example, 30 percent of the candidates in the most recent election were women, and their newfound knowledge empowers them to speak out for political change. Alnouri related one story that demonstrates the new political consciousness. In the midst of recent negotiations to form a new government, one of her female colleagues remarked, “We need training for our politicians on how to use the democratic system.”

Though the results of the election are still in dispute, our commitment to Iraq's women is certain. We're helping them develop the tools they need to find their own voices, despite the security risks.

Blog Post:  Posted July 24, 2010, 2:43 am by Sarah Royall

Where the road ends

Country: Tajikistan

Topics: Education

After four hours of winding through bumpy dirt roads heading east from the capital of Tajikistan — Dushanbe — hugging mountain sides with sharp drop-offs to a rushing river, you'll find yourself in Gharm. It's a small, conservative town by most standards. There's one restaurant, a small daily market and a few shops that carry that Tajik staples: RC cola, rice, cookies, soap, etc.

The road crossing a river in Tavildara, Rasht Valley, Tajikistan Photo: Sarah Royall for Mercy Corps

For the past six weeks this is where I have called home. Most fellow expats in Tajikistan ask me, how do you live in such a small place? But I rather like it actually and I think it's important that Mercy Corps places expats out in the field where our work is really happening.

As though Gharm weren't small enough, I've been spending the last few weeks in even smaller villages. The roads to these villages are even worse than the road to Gharm. Our drivers skillfully pass through small rivers, slosh through muddy roads and find the road where I honestly can't see it.

The road to Gharm, Tajikistan on a good day in summer. Photo: Sarah Royall for Mercy Corps

What's at the end of these roads is astonishing. Most of Tajikistan is covered with high mountains, and amazingly people find a way to live up there. Not only do they survive the harsh winters, but they do so with an incredible sort of grace. Everywhere we go people greet us with smiles and laughter, and beg us to share a cup of tea with them or even stay the night.

Last week we visited a little village in the district of Obi Mehnat. During the winter these villages are completely cut off from larger towns because the snow makes the difficult roads up the mountains completely impassable. In 2002, Mercy Corps built the first school up in this village.

I met one of the school teachers who herself had only been able to attend 8th grade because the village lacked any further grades. She boasted that now the students from their village are constantly ranking in the top of the country for academic achievements. Not only that, but in the heart of the conservative Islamic Rasht valley, they are graduating more girls than boys!

Blog Post:  Posted July 1, 2010, 7:27 am by Brenna Nyznik

Global Citizen Corps leaders act locally and connect globally to end poverty!

Topics: Youth, Education

Youth in Edinburgh sent a handmade football "scarf" to political leaders to ask them to promote access to education worldwide. Photo: Sarah Brown

On June 22, we had the very exciting privilege of witnessing the true power of technology and an excellent example of our ability to take action locally as see the impact globally!

As part of the Access to Education global action calendar, GCC leaders Sinan, Grant and Sinead gathered in Edinburgh Scotland, to facilitate our first peer education workshop led by video conference with a group of young people at the Action Centre in Portland. Although the Millennium Development Goals state that all children will have access to primary education by 2015, there are still 72 million children who receive no education whatsoever, and GCC leaders are taking the initiative to make sure that their peers know all about it, and know what they can do to change it!

Staff in Edinburgh supported the young people to plan and lead a one hour session to discuss the challenges around Access to Education and promote the 1GOAL campaign, which is using the energy of the World Cup in South Africa to ask world leaders to increase their commitment to making education accessible to all. Following the World Cup, leaders will meet in Africa to discuss this issue, and hundreds of thousands of young people are making their voices heard by holding events for their schools, youth groups, communities and churches, raising awareness and collecting signatures on handmade football 'scarves' to send to their country leaders.

Mercy Corps' Global Citizen Corps connected youth in Edinburgh and in Portland for a peer education workshop, part of a campaign to ensure access to education throughout the world. Photo: Brenna Nyznik

The day in Edinburgh started at the annual Schools Conference on a very hot and muggy Scottish morning, where the leaders delivered their session to over 50 Edinburgh pupils and collected signatures for their scarf. The morning went brilliantly, with over 100 signatures collected in all, and which left the three leaders feeling very confident about the evening's video conference with Portland.

Staff in the US arranged for 9 young people to take part in the training, and prepared the necessary materials and usual test runs to make sure everything was working properly. After sorting out a few minor technicalities, the young people were finally 'face to face' or at least 'screen to screen' and the excitement was contagious.

The group explored the Millenium Development Goals together, examing their significance and looking at how they are linked, both locally and globally, and with an emphasis on education. The young people tested their knowledge on what the challenges are in making education accessible for all, and what still needs to be done to make it happen. The leaders presented their signed scarf, explaining that it would be sent to the Prime Minister, and the US group seemed quite enthusiastic to also create their own scarves. This was truly the GCC motto of Awareness + Action = Impact in...well...action!

Being the first workshop conducted by live video, there were the usual challenges and moments where either everyone spoke at once, or no one did, cameras went fuzzy and the general hilarity of trying to demonstrate activities from a few thousand miles away, but there was also a lot of laughter, genuine curiosity about each other, and a sense of real achievement. After the session ended and we said our goodbyes, one of the UK leaders said "It was great because everyone was so responsive, they seemed really involved and seemed to really enjoy it!"

Most importantly, it was amazing to see the young people literally come together despite the distance, sharing stories, perspectives and hopes, and even a bit of singing and dancing. It was an example of the challenges and successes we can find in crossing cultural and physical borders, the role technology can play in this, and the power of the youth voice to make it all happen.

(To find out more about the Global Campaign for Education and the 1GOAL campaign please visit www.campaignforeducation.org and www.join1goal.org)

Update from Haiti: A Six-Month Report:

Posted June 28, 2010 by Lisa Hoashi

A Youthful Vision for a New Haiti

Country: Haiti

Topics: Youth, Emergencies, Education, Children

Fleurismus Valine, 10, who attends the art therapy program Children’s Place, is just one of the many children we’ve helped through Comfort for Kids. Photo: Nancy Farese for Mercy Corps

Harnessing the energy of young people is instrumental in rebuilding a stronger Haiti. Our youth programs put that belief into action by addressing young people’s unique psychosocial needs and investing in their development.

Comfort for Kids
Immediately after the earthquake, Mercy Corps began Comfort for Kids trainings for parents, teachers, pediatricians, psychologists, social workers and other childcare professionals. These workshops offer practical ways to help kids heal from the psychological trauma they experienced, so they can go on to lead healthy lives.

The workshops have immediate impact, says Mercy Corps psychologist Murielle Volcy. “Parents tell us, ‘I didn’t know this information. I didn’t know why my child always had a stomachache or bad dreams. Now I know it is stress from the earthquake and that I can help them with their feelings.’”

Mercy Corps will train a total of 3,150 parents and professionals in Comfort for Kids. They, in turn, will help some 63,000 children. Next, Mercy Corps is launching Moving Forward, a program that will train 50 youth workers and coaches at 25 organizations to use sports and play with 1,500 kids to restore their self- confidence and sense of normalcy.

Mercy Corps has used Comfort for Kids and Moving Forward to help children recover from many other disasters, including September 11 (2001), Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005), as well as earthquakes in Peru (2007), China (2008) and Chile (2010).

Re-imagining Haiti
Even before January 12, Haiti struggled with a weak economy, limited educational opportunities and severe environmental degradation. The destruction caused challenges. But many Haitians agree that if there were ever a time to start over, it’s now.

Mercy Corps is working with Haitian youth to become active participants in what many are calling the “re-imagining of Haiti.” This fall, our youth program plans to bring together 100 Haitian artists and educators to offer arts workshops to 1,500 youth and cultural events to more than 5,000 young people. Through photography and storytelling, these youth will learn to communicate their personal vision for change. Their artistic self-expression is a powerful
first step to taking ownership of the challenges their communities face.

Mercy Corps is also bringing Cinema Under the Stars (Sinema Anba Zetwal in Creole) to communities across Haiti. Cinema Under the Stars is a series of multimedia street events that use short films, skits and music to share positive, educational messages — including those in our Comfort for Kids program — with the public. These interactive events will reach 100,000 people over two months, building morale and strengthening their community bonds.

Blog Post:  Posted June 3, 2010, 12:01 am by Karen Anderson

"Now I know what to do if it happens again"

Country: Chile

Topics: Health, Emergencies, Education, Displacement, Children

It’s been a marathon of logistics and preparations, but we are now bringing our tailored-for-Chile version of Mercy Corps workshops to some 800 boys and girls in the towns of Talcahuano, Penco, Coronel, Hualpén, San Pedro de la Paz and Chiguayante.

The coastal towns that ring the city of Concepción were dealt a double blow on February 27: a pre-dawn earthquake of unprecedented power (8.8 on the Richter scale, among the highest ever recorded) followed by three towering walls of water.

In launching the “My Earthquake/Tsunami Story” (Comfort for Kids) and “Moving Forward” sports program in schools and community centers, we’ve heard a lot of personal accounts from the parents, teachers and community leaders we’ve trained as mentors, and from the children themselves. Even children whose homes escaped damage tell vivid accounts of relatives or schoolmates losing homes or fleeing from the flooding.

“I love to read and draw and here I can get over being afraid, especially about tsunamis,” five-year-old Abigail Figueroa said about the Comfort for Kids program. Photo: courtesy of EPES

But as the workshops advance, we’re beginning to hear something new from the children.

Abigail Figueroa, age 5, says “I love to read and draw and here I can get over being afraid, especially about tsunamis.”

Camila Flores, 10, finds the workshop “lots of fun. We write in our workbooks, color, paint our family, draw what happened to us in the tsunami the houses in the water, what we felt.”

“While it was happening, I thought we were going to die,” she says, “but now we learned that it was an earthquake.”

“The earthquake was a surprise for me, because afterwards, everyone came together, all the neighbors came by to see how we were, people went door to door to see how everyone was doing.”

Wepu Re Pu, Talcahuano

Abigail and Camila are participants in one of two workshops led by Millaray Casteñeda Meliñan in Talcahuano. “How many of you felt that your mother or father was angry, anguished, sad, irritable?” she asks the children, ages 7 to 11. “Remember that none of these things is your fault.”

The workshop is organized by Wepu Re Pu, a new cultural association for urban Mapuches. The name means “building roads” in Mapudungun. Co-founder Ivonne Nahuelpan explains how the workshop entwines two types of recovery: emotional and cultural.

Wepu Re Pu, a new cultural association for urban families from the Mapuche ethnic group, conducts a workshop for children between the ages of 7 and 11. Photo: courtesy of EPES

Interspersed with the workbook activities, Millaray teaches the children songs, greetings and numbers in Mapudungun. Many children know the legend of Tren Tren and how, in ancient times, he helped the Mapuche run into the hills as the waters rose. “To us, this is a story about surviving a tsunami,” says Ivonne.

“This program has been a gift to us,” she adds. “Our children suffered greatly. They need emotional support. Our culture and cosmovision can help them, too.”

Villa Centinela, Talcahuano

The Villa Centinela Community Hall is located in a housing project in the hills of Talcahuano. Mentors Mery Caro and Herminda Guzman, mothers and community leaders, are eager for the first session to being. While waiting for the children to arrive, we discuss recent news reports that have everyone talking: researchers say that the region can expect a grade 7 aftershock within the next two months.

Some 20 children show up, accompanied by their mothers. The mentors explain how the sessions will help children reestablish the four pillars of feeling safe: People, Place, Ritual and Routine.

They show mothers and children the backpack that each child will receive, packed with pencils, eraser, case, flashlight, a stuffed animal, toothbrush, toothpaste and the "My Story" workbook.

Reestablishing routine is very important, one of the mentors explains. “I bet some of you forgot to brush your teeth after the earthquake,” she chides the children, before catching herself. “Of course, none of us had water then, either,” she laughs.

Rosa Medel Elementary School, Coronel

When the coalmines closed in Coronel, fish factories moved in, bringing poorly paid jobs and a terrible stench. The Rosa Medel Elementary School is located across from a cannery and next to a coal-fired power station in Caleta Lo Rojas, where Educacion Popular en Salud (EPES) ran its first program nearly 30 years ago.

Of the school’s 230 students, 30 lost their houses.

This poor school was made poorer still once it lost windows, walls and most of its bathrooms. The indoor gym where “Moving Forward” is being held was repaired with a donation from local industries.

Photo: courtesy of EPES

We meet with school principal Carlos Segundo Torres, who reports that his students are still afraid — especially when mothers run to the school to fetch them with every aftershock. But students and parents are growing less apprehensive.

Second grade teacher Jovina Torres credits the workshops for calming nerves. “Just the other day, there was a tremor and the children all looked up at me as if saying ‘OK, we can deal with this.’”

Math teacher José Alarcón took the EPES/Mercy Corps training and then prepared elementary and PE teachers to conduct the My Story and Moving Forward programs. Some 60 parents attended the launch, Alarcón tells us, which was “an absolute success. You could see it on the faces of the children.” The volley and soccer balls, a net, a whistle, t-shirts and more are much-appreciated addition to the school’s meager sports gear, too.

Backpacks with EPES and Mercy Corps logos are all around the schoolyard. But for most children, one item is stored safely at home: the flashlight.

“I take mine to bed with me,” says Carla Copeli, a third grader, “and my mom sleeps there, too.”

Blog Post:  Posted June 2, 2010, 12:21 pm by Allison Huggins

Taking a step forward to protect women's rights

Country: Central African Republic

Topics: Women's Empowerment, Marginalized Groups, Education, Citizen Involvement

Allison Huggins (middle) shakes hands with a participant of Mercy Corps' Women's Empowerment Program on the outskirts of Bangui, Central African Republic. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

My name is Allison Huggins and I manage Mercy Corps’ women’s rights programs in the Central African Republic. I came here after working with women’s groups in Rwanda and Eastern Congo for three years. After my first year working with Mercy Corps, I developed our women’s legal support project after the baseline study that we completed on women’s rights violations showed the extent of violence that women across the country face.

Blog Post:  Posted June 1, 2010, 10:14 am by Kyle Dietrich

The art of youth development

Country: Haiti

Topics: Youth, Peaceful Change, Emergencies, Education, Citizen Involvement

I came to Haiti as someone who believes in seeing challenges — such as a conflict or natural disaster — as opportunities to identify and leverage large-scale social transformation.

John, age 16, documents life in a seaside village near Monrovia, Liberia during a Peace in Focus photo workshop.
Photo: Kyle Dietrich/Mercy Corps

Up until the earthquake, I had been running my own non-profit in Boston, which trains youth from post-conflict communities to be peacebuilders and leaders using photography and new media tools. Similar to that program, our Youth Leadership project in Haiti — supported by our MPower initiative — aims to enable young people to engage in a creative process that is both therapeutic and empowering. Through photography and storytelling, youth will learn to understand and nurture their own voice and vision for change, and then develop a unique skill set to share that vision with their community and the world.

This work builds off my several years supporting international development and peacebuilding programs with UN Peacekeeping Operations, USAID and the Peace Corps in Turkmenistan, Burundi, Liberia and Washington, D.C. Throughout my career, I have been eager to see more innovative programs for youth to engage in the revitalization and rebuilding of their communities.

By putting youth in leadership roles you enable them at a young age to begin taking ownership of the issues facing their communities. By integrating the arts, you give them an opportunity to develop creative and non-violent strategies for understanding and addressing those issues. This signals to the community that youth are not merely the future generation of leaders, but the present generation as well.

For Haiti to truly transform, there must be a profound re-imagination of what is possible here. This program supports the idea that that re-imagination can be led by youth. It allows young people to be agents of change rather than mere beneficiaries of programs. It supports the belief that, in order to be successful long-term, development programs must address the emotional and social needs of children and youth, alongside their physical and material needs.

With my position with the UN, I helped organize youth groups like this one in northeastern Burundi to use community theater to raise awareness about sexual violence and other issues.
Photo: Kyle Dietrich/Mercy Corps

Blog Post:  Posted May 15, 2010, 10:28 am by Lisa Hoashi

Helping teachers and kids recover in Port-au-Prince

Country: Haiti

Topics: Youth, Health, Emergencies, Education, Displacement, Children

In the car with Sandrine and Magdala, two of our talented trainers in Comfort for Kids, our program designed to teach adults ways to help address the post-earthquake psychosocial needs of children. We’re on our way to the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. I haven’t been to this part of the city yet. It’s a kind of commercial area near the airport, with lots of businesses along the road. As we get further in the neighborhood, the earthquake damage is staggering. Buildings with floors stacked on stop of each other like pancakes. Massive piles of rubble.

We pull up in front of the school, College Alexandre Claubert. Sandrine and Magdala have never been here before.

A group photo of the teachers who participated in the Comfort for Kids training at College Alexandre Claubert. Now they can better help their students cope with their reactions and feelings around the earthquake and recover from their experiences. Photo: Lisa Hoashi/Mercy Corps

I go outside into the street to take pictures while they wait for the teachers to arrive. I can’t believe how hard this neighborhood was hit. Outside I see kids goofing around in their uniforms, some boys pegging each other with little pieces of rubble which leave poofs of white dust on their blue uniforms where they hit. They are scrambling around, laughing.

When I get back to the classroom, there are now 20 teachers who have arrived. They are all teachers at this school, mainly men. I won’t be able to understand the training because it’s in Creole so Sandrine puts me at the front of the class on a chair so she can whisper to me what’s happening. I take notes, which follow…

Introductions. Many of the teachers are also students themselves, young between 20-30. Some study journalism, psychology, accounting. They stand up when introducing themselves.

The classroom: Cement block walls with open windows and grates over them. Linoleum floor, desks wooden with benches. Some are stamped “Unicef.” Son of the director is sitting quietly in the next classroom over, he’s 3 or 4 and so well behaved. Most of the teacher wear polos and sneakers. Dress shoes and slacks. No lightbulb in the ceiling.

Sandrine starts off talking about what an earthquake is. If they had information about it before. How it changed their life.

She asks, How did it change your life? How did it feel?

One man says it made him very sad and very angry. He’s wearing a white pressed shirt and tie, very tall and thin, and when he talked I sensed real bravery in what he was saying.

Another, who was the one who said he studied psychology, said he tried to use what he knew to help others in his neighborhood cope with their feelings after the earthquake.

Magdala reviews the four pillars of security: environment, home, culture, routine. How important they are for everyone, as well as children to have. How with the earthquake they have lost a lot of them and how kids are vulnerable and how we can help them.

Class is seminar style, like a college class. With Sandrine and Magdala lecturing, with breaks in discussion, trading ideas, laughing, coming back to curriculum. Everyone is contributing a lot to the discussion. Sandrine says it’s common, because the information is so new to them.

They are learning how to help others deal with their feelings even when the earthquake is equally as fresh for them.

My own feelings — sadness, empathy. And grateful for the dignity of these trainings, which allow people to talk about their feelings in a supportive environment. Not sure if they have the opportunity elsewhere. I am so glad Mercy Corps is providing these trainings — I see how important they are.

They discuss how the earthquake affected their own lives, how to react in future earthquakes. How to take care of their own children in an earthquake. How to protect them. Then they discuss each age group’s special needs. 0-3, 4-7, 8-12, 13-18. And there are differences between boys and girls.

Then each person is given a slip of paper that has a real comment from a child on it (Mercy Corps collected these) and using what they just learned, they will share with the class what each would say or do with each child. They discuss it in their rows of three.

Some didn’t talk as much as others during the class but when it comes time to present they all speak clearly and confidently with emphasis and pauses.

I think about my own feelings during 9/11. There was that time when I had to catch a flight and there was an anthrax scare in our building and we weren’t allowed to leave. I had to go but I was afraid to set out on my own among so many strangers. It can be frightening to be in a huge city in an emergency.

Sandrine says that one of the sample questions from children was whether the earthquake was a punishment from God. She says that about half of the teachers said they would say, “Yes.” She advised them that it was better to say to younger children that it was from natural causes, because they may have different religious beliefs than the teacher — there are many different religions in Haiti. But if a child is older, then the teacher could ask what they thought, and discuss their beliefs together.

Afterward, a chat with Wilson, an English teacher. He teaches 12-16 year olds. He says: “The information was very helpful. I learned ways that I can respond to the children now. Since the earthquake they have had strange behavior. When you speak to them, they get very nervous, shy. Now I will give them more time to speak or to get quiet when I ask them to.”

On the way back to the office, we slow in the traffic in Delmas. Sandrine looks past me out the window. She’s looking at a tall wall rising up next to the road where men are propping up mattresses to sell. She says, “Behind there was one of the biggest grocery stores in Port-au-Prince. It completely collapsed in the earthquake. Only four were saved. From cars in the parking lot they estimated 300 people were inside.”

Everywhere there are reminders like these.

A shot of the street just outside the College Alexandre Claubert in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, where Mercy Corps gave a Comfort for Kids training. Photo: Lisa Hoashi/Mercy Corps

Blog Post:  Posted May 11, 2010, 6:22 am by Muhammad Rizal

Growing with Kedai Balitaku

Country: Indonesia

Topics: Health, Food/Nutrition, Education, Economic Development, Children

I believe that helping people to sell nutritious foods for children is the best strategy to ensure sustainability. Since February 2010, Mercy Corps' local nutrition program — called Kedai Balitaku — has promoted and advertised healthy food and child nutrition to more than 5,000 children under five in 100 kindergartens in Banda Aceh and Aceh Besar. We are proud to announce three big successes this month from the program:

1. Vendors are using their profits to expand their businesses: Four months ago, Mrs. Harlina was unemployed, but now she has earned an average of US$50 per week from selling healthy snacks. The foods that she makes and sells are well-liked by both children and parents in Banda Aceh. Mrs. Harlina is currently applying for a loan from a local micro credit institution to buy a small food processing machine. In addition, three other Kedai Balitaku vendor have used their earnings and new business acumen to grow their businesses: Mrs. Syarifah has already bought a mixer to help in her business. Mrs. Fiza has bought a mixer to help her produce more bread and a motorbike on credit to support the distribution of her products. Mrs. Yanti has bought new furniture and a refrigerator from the profits she got during February, March and April 2010.
2. A vendor was invited to participate in the district's Pameran Produk Unggulan (Superior Product Exhibition): Mrs. Rosmaniar was invited by the district of Aceh Besar to participate in a “Superior Product Exhibition from May 3-9, 2010. The project is organized by the local government to promote local products and help small enterprise develop. The opening of the exhibition was attended by almost all government employees and communities in the regency of Aceh Besarh. Mrs. Rosmaniar displayed homemade Banana Cake, Cheese-Banana Bread and Carrot Muffins at the Expo. She also earned US$50 from selling various nutritious snacks.
3. Children have voluntarily changed from junk food to fruits: In addition to vendor support, Mercy Corps is working to provide extensive health information to more than 500 children under the age of five in nine kindergartens that are located near each of our vendor’s homes. The aim of the health campaign is to change children's food consumption behavior during school time. Isva Rahmi — Mercy Corps Nutrition Officer — along with her teacher assistant, Fitri, are teaching children about healthy food through role-playing and story telling.

The teachers and I initially thought it would take a long time for children to learn to replace chocolate and candy with fruits and vegetables. However, we were all very surprised with the quick results of the nutrition campaign. On the second visit, Isva taught the children that snacks containing additives are harmful, then asked the children to replace the snacks brought from home with locally available fruits. The result was that almost all of the children collected their snacks and traded them for fruits!

Two schools have reported that they are happy with the result of nutrition campaign. A teacher whose students participated in the program last week thanked the nutrition team. She said that they are very happy because student’s appetites have become better. The children didn’t eat much before Mercy Corps promoted about healthy food, because the fatty snacks they used to eat had eliminated their appetite.

Another teacher reported that parents have met them recently and said that they are really glad with the change in their children's behavior. The parent told the teacher that their children had talked to them about the nutrition education campaign. Their children are now aware about nutrition and can choose between healthy and unhealthy snacks.

On the third visit, some children welcomed the nutrition team shouting “We do not eat unhealthy snacks anymore.”

“I didn’t eat candy today,” said one boy. “Me too, I don’t eat chocolate!” said another one. On the third visit, Isva brought Kedai Balitaku homemade snacks with fruits and vegetables inside. She never expected that children would ask her, “is it healthy food you bring?” Here is more to healthy growth!