GHEI Deworming and Sandals Project
Worms mainly affect the well-being of young children. Because worms contribute to anemia, which is a leading cause of death among people in these areas, de-worming is a simple and effective method in which to increase the chances of survival for young children. By removing one possible cause of a child’s deteriorated health, it gives them a better chance of surviving the other possible causes of death, such as malaria, malnutrition, etc. Children develop worms by walking barefoot in contaminated soils. This project will help by funding the purchase of the de-worming medicine for 500 students and sandals for those without shoes. The sandals will help prevent reinfection. The Ghana Health and Education Initiative has done this before, lets raise the funds to do it again. So cheap, so effective - potentially lifesaving. To learn more, please click on this project. Completed!

The following information, although, lengthy is very illustrative of the importance of this project and the impact it can have on the community in Ghana. This information was provided by GHEI in their formal project application.

"The projects are mainly organized by short-term volunteers. They plan a course of action, to separate the schools according to grade or age-group, and administer the pills to each child. Then they teach an age- appropriate message having to do with prevention of worms. A past group created a story book with the children and then made up a song that was soon sung by children all around the village.

(to the tune of “If You’re Happy and you know it, clap your hands”)
To say bye bye to worms, wash your hands
To say bye bye to worms, wash your hands

To say bye bye to worms, wear your shoes
To say bye bye to worms, wear your shoes

To say bye bye to worms, wear your shorts (underwear)
To say bye bye to worms, wear your shorts (underwear)


This project has the potential to save lives. Worms mainly affect the well-being of young children. The WHO cites that among children under 5 in Sub-Saharan Africa, 176/1000 will die, as opposed to 7/1000 in developed countries. Likewise 30% of children under 5 suffer from malnutrition. Because worms contribute to anemia, which is a leading cause of death among people in these areas, de-worming is a simple and effective method in which to increase the chances of survival for young children. By removing one possible cause of a child’s deteriorated health, it gives them a better chance of surviving the other possible causes of death, such as malaria, malnutrition, etc.

GHEI has begun to address the need for direct health services that regional health clinics do not have funding to address. Worms are a common problem in developing countries without proper sanitary conditions. They are especially prevalent in children, because they play in the dirt, do not strictly wash their hands before eating, and as children, are generally more prone to contracting worms. Worms can cause anemia, vitamin A deficiency, learning impairment and intestinal obstruction.

Therefore we hope to continue individual, short-term initiatives that address the need for young children to be de-wormed. This includes regular treatments of de-worming medicine, education on how to prevent getting worms, and providing sandals for children who do not have them. We have successfully run one course of treatment for nursery school students in Humjibre’s public schools in the summer of 2005, coupled with a public health campaign teaching the young children to wash their hands, wear their shoes and underwear. However, treatment for worms, while simple (one pill) and at low cost, must be administered semi-annually.


COMPLETED!

Supporters of www.ChooseANeed.org kindly raised $750 for GHEI, in order to enable us to buy deworming tablets and flip-flops for the schoolchildren of Humjibre, a village of approximately 4500 people in the Western Region of Ghana.

Worms are a large health burden in Humjibre, in particular in children under the age of 10 years, causing ill-health, diarrhea, and malnutrition. Many children do not wear shoes, leaving them vulnerable to hookworm infection. Community hygiene is also a problem, with few latrines and many children defecating in the bush. The level of education about worms is low, and methods of transmission and infection are not widely known about in the village.

GHEI’s permanent members of staff, joined by four volunteers from the USA and Canada, carried out the project during four sessions from Thursday 9th August through Tuesday 14th August. The four schools visited were the Humjibre Anglican Primary School, the DC Primary School, Deeper Life Primary School, and Wireko Memorial School. The children targeted were those in Kindergarten 1 and 2, and Primary stage 1 and 2 (an age range of approximately 3 to 10 years).

At each session, parents were asked to participate in a registration questionnaire, enabling us to assess the project and plan for future interventions. The volunteers, together with the GHEI Adult Peer Educators, then carried out an adult teaching session, educating the parents on the dangers of worms, and how to protect themselves and their children. They also gave information about hygiene. The children also had an education session, with games, songs, stories, and posters about worms. Each child was then given a deworming tablet (Albendazole), and a pair of flip-flops.

The events were highly successful, and turn-out was very high, despite the fact that the children were on their school holidays, and also despite the rain! The parents were extremely grateful for the events, and the children really enjoyed their education sessions. In total, we recorded that we dewormed 69.7% of students in Humjibre who are in kindergarten and Primary stage 1 and 2. In total, 509 students were dewormed during the four sessions, and we plan to return to the schools once they reopen in September to distribute the remaining tablets and shoes to those children who did not attend. 570 children and their parents attended the education sessions and received shoes (the extra 61 students were not dewormed as they either had taken deworming medication in the past 3 months or were sick on the day).

As part of the registration questionnaire, we discovered that just 39.8% of parents had ever dewormed their child independently before these events. The survey also showed that just 22.65% of parents washed their hands with soap before preparing food. Both of these indicators show the need for this deworming and education programme. Our pre-education and post-education knowledge assessment surveys also showed good results, with parents knowing a mean of 0.58 ways to prevent worms before the sessions, and a mean of 2.09 ways after the sessions.

We hope that the increase in knowledge about worms will lead to behavior change, with improvements in personal and community hygiene decreasing the incidence of worms in Humjibre, and therefore the disease burden for the under-10 age-group.

Another interesting statistic was that of the 570 children and their parents attending the events, 25.2% defecated in the bush, having no access to a latrine. If this result is extrapolated to the rest of Humjibre (with its population of 4500), it suggests that more than 1000 people defecate daily in the bush. GHEI has therefore placed provision of community latrines at the top of its immediate priority list. We hope to start this process by constructing a 4-seater latrine at the Junior Secondary School, which currently has no toilet facilities. This project is also being supported by www.ChooseANeed.org.