Clean hands every time
Long before the threat of Covid-19, volunteers were keen on teaching about the benefits of hand washing especially using soap. Hands around Sitima, especially children’s are usually pretty dirty but the contamination poses some serious health risks. Soap is a precious commodity that villagers often don’t possess and it is normal for volunteers to take soap with them and/or to buy it out there to give away to local people.
During February, Marian and Veronica erected Tippy Taps in the front garden in Sitima and ran workshops, teaching the children, the teenagers and the adults, how and why to wash their hands properly, singing Happy Birthday Clean Hands, twice, whilst they did. All participants were given a bar of soap to take home with them
The children made a beautiful poster, as in the photograph, with their own strap line “Msambani m’mnja nthawi iliyonse” (Clean hands every time) We also had a lot of amazingly clean hands at the end!
As this is posted, Malawi remains free of Coronavirus, but working with the parish priest Fr Owen, N4BW has forwarded funding for the provision of sanitisers and masks for key works and for the distribution of soap to the villagers
Other News
Disability Project
In September and October of this year Sheila and Jane were in Sitima working with people with disabilities. Disabled people and their families are very often among the poorest in a very poor area.
Keeping Girls in Education
According to UNESCO, Institute for Statistics, (US 2018), the figures show that in Sub-Saharan Africa, 33.3 million girls of primary and lower secondary school age are out of school, rising to 52.2 million
A volunteer reflects
In the form of a letter to the people of Sitima village, a returned volunteer reflects on the joys she experienced during her month long stay. Click on the title, ‘a volunteer reflects” to read on.