By Alou Doumbia, Field Director
The world is now experiencing a major health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The case of Mali is more complex because this crisis was preceded by another pandemic — Ebola in 2015.
A student washes his hands during a training — please note this training occurred before the pandemic, so that’s why you don’t see social distancing or masks here!
The current crisis has prolonged the closure of classes, which had already been caused by an earlier teachers' strike. To respond to these problems, Mali Rising Foundation has not folded its arms. Instead, we have initiated actions starting with the distribution of hand-washing devices with soap to the populations in partner villages, raising awareness among the populations to apply safety precautions, distribution of exercise brochures to students so that they are always in contact with home education. and other ongoing actions.
Before our villages experienced the pandemic, Mali Rising had initiated actions to prevent possible cases of hygiene-related diseases. As far back as 2015, we distributed soap hand washing stations in some of our schools in the villages such as Manabougou, Diorila, Tentoubougou, Simidji, Kassela, and Beneko. The distribution was accompanied by training sessions to teach students how to use the stations while demonstrating the importance of hand washing with soap. During these trainings, the students answered the following questions:
How do you know your hand is dirty?
When should you wash your hands?
How do we feel when we wash our hands with soap?
In response to these questions the students said that touching dirty fingers with your tongue gives you a salty taste, but when you wash your dirty hands with soap the color of the water changes. The students learn we wash our hands with soap before entering class and after leaving the toilet or before eating. After washing your hands, students mentioned they can feel the freshness in your hands as the air enters the pores and the hands become light. Then, according to the students, washing their hands regularly with soap helps to prevent or even eradicate diarrhea, typhoid fever, dysentery, tuberculosis, and stomach aches.
Given the reality today, we must intensify these actions. These villages are still clamoring for kits to protect themselves against coronavirus disease and other hygiene-related illnesses as they are already used to the practice of hand-washing with soap and want to use them as we have taught them.
During our current discussions with leaders in these villages, some people told us that we were forecasters of the future. Why? Because in 2015, no one knew that the world will be invaded by a disease like the coronavirus. So it is interesting to act against a problem, but prevention is better than cure!
Want to help? Donate to our Back-to-School Safe coronavirus protection campaign!
