By Adama Kone, Teacher Project Manager

Keeping students healthy is tremendously challenging at schools in Mali because of the lack of running water and a lack of hygiene education. Mali Rising has a small Health Project which focuses on providing basic tools and handwashing education to address one of the simplest health solutions – good hand hygiene!

Generally at schools in Mali, there are more students in a classroom than those in other countries may be able to imagine. It is very common for a classroom to house forty to 100 students, which cannot only cause many troubles for teachers but can also be a source of multiplying contagious diseases. In addition to that, in front of many schools in Mali women set up small businesses like selling candies, food, and fruits to school kids during the breaks.

Culturally, kids in Mali do not usually wash their hands with soap either at school or at home. Most do not know how to properly wash their hands with soap.  That means that kids in Mali Rising schools are not exceptions -- they are as much exposed to the diseases related dirty hands as any other kids.

In order to support the health of students in our schools, we provide handwashing trainings throughout the year. This month, we carried out a handwashing training at Tim Gibson Middle School of Sebela. When we arrived, we found the students did not even how to wash properly hands with soap and they were not doing it regularly at school or at home. Many of the students in Tim Gibson Middle School also do not know diseases can be related to dirty hands.

Fatoumata Samaké is a student in 7th grade at Tim Gibson Middle School. She took part in our hand washing training with 81 other students at the school.  Fatoumata is thirteen years old and told us she likes school very much. Fatoumata was excited that her school benefited the hand washing training because she thinks that the training allowed them to know more about how diseases can be caused by dirty hands. She also noted it training helped them understand how to wash hands properly and when it is crucial to do so.

During the training, Fatoumata volunteered to practice washing her hands with soap in front of the rest of her classmates. Before she washed her hands, we placed glitter on her hands -- representing germs. This made students laugh and understand that germs could be on hands without their knowledge. Students noted that this means the germs could be eaten with their food and give diseases.  Fatoumata was also able to share with classmates how important it is to wash hands with soap after using bathroom, changing a baby’s diapers, before cooking, or before eating.

Fatoumata said, “I am so excited and grateful to Mali Rising for having the hand washing training. I hope the training will help my peer students change their behavior and wash their hands with soap as needed so that there are more healthy students in our classrooms.”