Cholera in Zimbabwe: children and young people are part of the solution

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 faeces 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.