To recognize April 25th, World Malaria Day, I've been facilitating educational activities with students at my school. In the beginning of this month, a small group of 8th grade students and I had a discussion about malaria. Further, they drew people sleeping under mosquito nets, people swatting mosquitoes, and other pictures that had to do with malaria. Also, they learned malaria-related vocabulary in English.
Afterwards, we went outside to play games. One of the games we played was a modified
version of "duck, duck, goose" that I made up. One
student would be the mosquito and he or she would pick its next victim by tapping his or her head
and yelling, "Run!" The mosquito tries
to catch the person before he or she finds the safe place (his or her original spot).
Hypothetically, the safe place
would be underneath a mosquito net.
Today, we moved the discussion to a classroom and anyone who wanted to participate
was invited. We had a trivia game where six students sat in front of the classroom
and if a student knew an answer, he or she stood up. After, the student responded with the
correct answer, he or she received a piece of candy. Meanwhile, a volunteer wrote down the facts on the
board while the other students copied them down.
Afterwards students had an opportunity to win more candy if they discussed what they plan to do in their community for malaria awareness. Many students
said that today, they will tell the neighbors that it is important to go to the hospital
if they experience diarrhea, body aches, loss of appetite, fever, or other symptoms of malaria,
so that they could get tested. They added that malaria can be prevented if people sleep
underneath their mosquito net and that their mosquito nets should be not be used as a net for fishing. Surprisingly, some
people actually use mosquito nets to catch food!
Stay tuned to see what the students do for World Malaria Day on April 25th!
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