What am I doing here?

So what do I actually do here in Guatemala?

My work partner and I Cristina are volunteers in the Healthy Schools Program. Essentially, this program recognizes that if one wants to change any type of behavior within a society, the most effective, long-lasting, far-reaching change agents are the children of that society. As I’ve written previously, Guatemala, like many third-world countries, has limited access to health knowledge. Therefore, hand washing, the idea of trash cans or throwing trash in a designated area, any knowledge of germs, parasites and transmission of diseases doesn’t really exist. It’s difficult to grasp the gravity of the situation in just a few words, but essentially, there is a great need spread basic healthy knowledge. In order to combat the lack of health knowledge and resulting absence of healthy habits, the director of the Healthy Schools program, a Guatemalan Doctor, has designed a way to start implementing healthy habits in classrooms across Guatemala.

The Healthy Schools program has three important parts:

Part i) helps the schools fill out grants to get the infrastructure necessary to practice healthy habits. Many schools have latrines or flushable toilets but no place for the students to wash their hands or perhaps lack water all together. As Peace Corps Volunteers, it’s our job to connect schools with NGOs (non-governmental organizations or international non-profit organizations) who are willing to help fund projects like a hand-washing station or flushable toilets or a water storage tank. In an effort ensure community investment and sustainability, the NGO provides one third of the funds or labor for each project, the parents another and the local government the last third.

Part ii) ensures that the teachers are teaching health concepts twice a week and are practicing healthy habits with the students every day. Walk into any classroom and all the students can tell you health means washing hands, eating healthy foods, bathing, brushing teeth etc, but the vast majority rarely if at all actually do these things (kind of how Americans know they’re getting fatter and should skip the fast food and hit the gym…but don’t). Having the knowledge of what you should do and still not doing is certainly not unique to the third world. Therefore, the most important part of the HS program is creating an environment where it is easy to be healthy. Each classroom in the school has a “Rincon de Salud/Health Corner” where each student has his toothbrush and paste, towel, toilet paper etc handy. By creating a “Hand-washing and Teeth-brushing Schedule” the students and teachers will know exactly when their class can go out to the hand-washing station to get ready for snack or at which bell they should start brushing their teeth after snack is over. By establishing a routine and having resources handy in the Health Corner, the schools are creating an environment where being healthy isn’t all that difficult, thus (theoretically) reducing resistance to the big change that is actually occurring.

Part iii) (isn’t actually defined as a major component of the HS program but I think it’s vital to the success of the program) is designed to educate Guatemala’s teachers about concepts such as, “what are germs?”, “how do they enter our bodies?”, “what can we do to protect ourselves?”, “why should I brush my teeth”, “what are cavities?” etc. With the lack of basic health knowledge, in my opinion it is futile and foolish to implement the previous two steps without propping up the healthy habits with the knowledge of WHY or HOW. The average American knows about germs and cavities. The average Guatemalan does not (of course these are a generalizations). By implementing healthy habits without giving the teachers the proper knowledge to teach their students what soap actually does and how germs are too small to see, it’s not difficult to see why a kid could just as easily skip the soap part and still reasonably think he is being healthy by washing with water until his hands no longer look dirty.

Since I’m working on being less long-winded : ) that’s all for now!

Oh, except I think it’s important to mention that in the newest phase of HS, the volunteer pairs are in charge of implementing the program in an entire municipality of schools. In our case, that means 21 schools. All said, the numbers come out to: 1 superintendent, 21 principals, 257 teachers and 7,113 students. WHEW!!!! (But some of our fellow peeps have 37 schools so we are lucky!!)

Pray that we would know how to best split up the work, that we can be effective despite the big numbers and that the teachers will be supportive and energetic in starting the program in their school!