Health Update - School Outreaches, Sanitary Pads, and More!

Time for another update on MWCT's Health Program!  It's been a while since we've updated, but it's been a busy and exciting past few months.  We've continued our outreaches to schools all around Kuku Group Ranch, specifically primary schools in Iltilal, Kuku Village, Olorika, Inkisanjani, and Enkusero.  During these outreaches the schoolchildren are gathered together while Lena and Lairumbe give presentations on various health topics.

Lena instructs schoolgirls as to the proper use of sanitary pads.

Often we utilize the Swahili-based TeachAIDS materials on HIV/AIDS prevention, and discuss the effects of puberty, safe sexual practices, proper use of condoms, and more.  We also take the opportunity to dose all students with deworming medicine, protecting them from the harmful long-term effects of worms.  Finally, we discuss the use of cloth sanitary pads for the schoolgirls, and dispense sets of pads so that they can begin using them.

A school full of students closely follows one of MWCT's health presentations.

These cloth sanitary pads are available thanks to MWCT's partnership with a wonderful organization called Huru International.  The pads are sewn by volunteers in the United States to keep costs as low as possible, and then donated to a number of different countries throughout Africa.  MWCT also receives pad donations from another great organization, Pads For Africa.  MWCT asks girls to contribute 200 Kenyan shillings for a year's supply of pads, roughly half the initial cost of the pads.  By charging this small amount for the pads, we give the girls and their families something to invest in, so that they see the value in it.

More than 150 happy schoolgirls pose after receiving their new sanitary pads.

Now instead of staying home to avoid being embarrassed by the effects of puberty, the schoolgirls can confidently stay in school and attend year-round, receiving a better education while also living a healthier lifestyle.  We dispensed a year's supply of pads to more than 200 girls over the past few months, and plan to continue our efforts in the new year - with your help and donations, MWCT's Health Program will be better than ever in 2013.

A group of girls pose with MWCT employees after receiving pads.

TeachAIDS Blogs About MWCT - Again!

More news from MWCT's Health Program coming soon, but first some more exciting news about expanding news of our efforts!  TeachAIDS, the fantastic organization who first blogged about collaborating with MWCT back in November, has written another blog post about our efforts and how we've been utilizing their materials to improve our Health outreaches and more effectively communicate health concepts to the Maasai.

Schoolchildren watch a TeachAIDS video and participate in a workshop made possible by the program.

TeachAIDS has developed a set of interactive and media-rich teaching applications to educate about the risks of HIV and AIDS.  However, what sets them apart from other organizations is that they produce these materials in Swahili, allowing us to communicate better with the large numbers of Maasai who speak much better Swahili than English.

In their latest blog post, TeachAIDS describes MWCT's use of its materials, and focuses on our work with girls and young women.  As our Health Program Co-Director Lena says, "The room was silent during the viewing as the girls were fully engaged with the TeachAIDS educational program [...] We are so thankful to the TeachAIDS team for developing these life-saving tools for our communities."

http://teachaids.org/blog/teachaids-empowers-girls-in-rural-kenya

TeachAIDS Blogs About MWCT!

Exciting news on the publicity front for MWCT's Health Program - we're being featured and blogged about on TeachAIDS' website!  TeachAIDS is a fantastic organization we're proud to partner with; they are an interdisciplinary team of researchers in many fields working together to develop interactive and rich-media applications to promote the prevention of HIV/AIDS.  But what makes them even more special is that they produce these materials specifically to overcome social and cultural barriers - in MWCT's case, all other available materials are in English, but TeachAIDS' are in Swahili!

An HIV education presentation in a local village using TeachAIDS materials.

You can read more about our collaboration and the success we had this summer combining the educational materials with a community soccer tournament in TeachAIDS' blog post here:

http://teachaids.org/blog/sports-and-hiv-education-in-rural-kenya

Stay tuned for more updates on this wonderful organization we're proud to partner with, our ongoing use of these education materials, and the other great stuff currently going on with the Health Program!