Many children and young people in an emergency can help promote good hygiene and keep infectious diseases at bay. Doing so helps them deal with their own sadness and fear by giving them a positive role to play. Children have good ideas about how to demonstrate and share health activities with others. Children as young as 4-5 years old can be involved and encouraged to share ideas and develop useful activities that help others and that help them too. Children have energy and enthusiasm. Here are examples of how children in emergencies can help others:
- Children help by preventing or dealing with illness
- They wash their own hands with soap before eating and after urination or defecation and show others how to do the same
- They dispose of feces in a safe way and show other s how to do the same
- They invent and sing songs and poems to others about important health messages
- They find, repair and help to get bednets treated to prevent mosquitoes biting at night
- They take part in campaigns to eat good food, take babies and young children for weighing, check-ups immunisation etc
- They learn the signs of dehydration (e.g. dry eyes and mouth, skin looses its spring) and give liquids (like the water from boiled rice) to young children who are dehydrated
- They learn that short breaths are a sign that a child has pneumonia and that antibiotics from a health worker are needed to help
- They use transparent water bottles to collect water and leave it in strong sunlight for six hours to make it safer for drinking.
- Children help by making sure young children have enough food and clean water
- They help young children get enough small meals often
- They make sure that children who are unhappy get enough good food and safe water and warmth
- Children help by helping others feel safe, loved and wanted
- They help children overcome trauma by listening, sitting beside, holding hands with, telling jokes and stories to, playing with and by including them in useful activities
- They make sure that children with a disability take part in play and learning activities
- They sit beside older people and learning stories from them that can be shared
- Children help by making other children’s lives interesting and positive
- They make pictures and models (with seeds, sands, clay, flowers and leaves, paper, cloth etc) to give to others and show others how to do the same
- They help children who are sad or quiet to do well with schoolwork like reading and maths.
- They help other children participate in sports, dancing and new activities like circus tricks (juggling, tumbling, balancing)
- They create and perform plays to entertain other children and adults
Read this amazing paper by Dr Paul Eunson. Dr Eunson worked in Ndosho orphanage during the Rwandan crisis. His ideas will be of great interest to anyone working in an emergency relief situation where children can be our greatest resource.
For a FREE online version of Clare Hanbury's book, Child-to-Child and Children Living in Refugee Camps, click here. Here you will also find a leaflet on Helping Children Affected by Natural Disasters.
Click here For more on current research re: the solarisation of water.
