Acting Out for Health

At PEP, we’re serious about helping communities. But that doesn’t stop us from using a little humor to teach health and sanitation. When 44 of our village teachers came to the office last week to learn about Community Led Total Sanitation, we chose to use skits to share our knowledge instead of lecturing them. Even if you’ve never seen a skit about diarrhea, doctor’s offices, pit latrines, and hand washing- I’m sure you can imagine the scene! If someone gives a lecture on the harmful effects of an open defecation system, you might not remember much. However, you can’t easily forget those effects when you see them acted out firsthand or are one of the actors yourself!

Pakistan has an extremely high Under 5 Child Mortality rate (120/1,000) primarily due to diarrhea and pneumonia, both which can be prevented or reduced through frequent hand washing.Acute lower respiratory infections are also a main cause of illness that can be prevented through hand washing.

Because our teachers are the movers and shakers of their communities, they share the knowledge they’ve gained about the benefits of washing your hands after using the toilet, boiling your drinking water, keeping cuts and injuries clean, and pit latrines with their villages. The children in our schools learn this knowledge from the teacher and then share it with their own families.One of our communities built 8 pit latrines with shelters in response to our last Community Led Total Sanitation training in order to reduce the waste and toxins in their water source! The communities have the initiative; PEP provides them with the knowledge. Let’s pray that this training has a strong impact on our communities as well!