Tajik children make sure hygiene message does not get watered downBy Vladimir Lozinski Their fingers click. They stamp their feet. They have the beat. The students of Primary School No. 43 in Bokhtar, Tajikistan break out into a song with a rappers’ rhythm. “It is fresh water year. Each classroom in the school has a health corner which features educational materials explaining safe hygiene practices. Children learn from each other about hygiene and water use through puppet theatre, newsletters and other visual aids. It is part of the Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion Project which UNICEF supports in 350 schools in the country. The project began in 2003 and since then there has been a 60 per cent drop in diarrhoeal cases and other related water-borne diseases. In a small play written and performed by the students, they act out a scene. Bahoodur Boboev, 14, drinks from a bucket of water. He buckles over with stomach cramps and is carried away to the doctor. The other students laugh but say that they have seen this happen in real life. Little more than half the schools here have access to safe water and thousands of children suffer from water-borne diseases. Sixty per cent of the water in Central Asia flows through Tajikistan, but people often use the same water for cleaning and drinking. Tajikistan is not alone in this. More than 2.6 billion people – 40 per cent of the world’s population – lack basic sanitation facilities, and over one billion people still use unsafe drinking water sources.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and a five-year civil war, the infrastructure of the country is still in need of repair. Despite a high literacy rate, many families are still not aware that the water they use and take for granted has to be safe and proper sanitation is a must, not a luxury. They have the knowledge but practice is a different issue. “Tajikistan is a very traditional society,” says Zaitoonbibi Naimova, UNICEF Assistant Project Officer for Education. “A daughter-in- law cannot tell her mother-in-law to change her habits. But young children are listened to because they are not perceived as a threat to authority. So in fact the children are acting as trainers to their parents,” she says. Teaching the children sanitary habits this way is effective because they are not just recipients of knowledge but are involved in the spread of information. They are encouraged to take the information home and pass it on to their family members. The children are now well versed in basic personal hygiene and the dangers of unsafe drinking water. UNICEF believes that education through children is the most effective way to achieve a change in the behaviour of the adults. For more information, please contact: Mukaddas Kurbanova
Video Tajik children playfully learn their water lessons
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