COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: UniBreak - Kathmandu
PROJECT: Community Healthcare Projects
WRITTEN BY: Julie Stocks
Our final week has crept up very quickly! Although most of us are ready to go home and see our families and sleep in our own beds, there is still so much more we’d like to do and see.
Our mission this week was to focus on health education with the students from local public schools in Dhapasi. The nine of us were split into groups and delegated topics to cover over the course of the week. These included hand hygiene, oral care, exercise and stretching, nutrition and identifying the symptoms, prevention and treatment of cold and flus and head lice (which was evidently common once we started talking about these topics to the kids).
Our first day was quite overwhelming as we went to the bigger of the two schools. We warmed up with a game of volleyball - Antipodeans versus Year 8 students. Let’s just say we need a lot of practice in the volleyball arena! After this we were split into classrooms and began our lesson plans.
The kids were all very excited and it took a while to calm them down and get them to concentrate on the topics we were teaching them. Some of the topics given were more practical than others such as the hand hygiene and oral care so after the first day we got our creative caps on and made up extra activity worksheets for them to do. Doing this turned out to be really fun and actually made us feel like even if they only understood half of what we are saying, then we’d still have made a tiny difference to their understanding and outlook on these subjects. And who knows, they might even pass on some of this information to their families, little by little.
Along with going to the schools we managed to visit a few orphanages. This was confronting – there were so many sad stories but seeing the kids smiling faces anyway made it all worthwhile. Some of the conditions were worse than others in terms of cleanliness and living conditions. This has made me consider sponsoring a child potentially doing some more work with them in the future. They were so eager to get involved and learn and that was really moving. Their eagerness and motivation was infectious which made it all the more fun to teach them!
Overall the health education week was eye opening, challenging and rewarding. Our energy levels were rock bottom by the end of the week, every single one of us was either fighting gastro or a chest infection but we did it!
Working with the kids brings a different element to your experience. They let your imagination run free and forget about the problems that we complain and worry about in daily life, which in reality, aren’t problems once you’ve met these little people.
Apart from volunteering at the hospital and teaching the kids, probably the biggest highlight that has added to such an authentic experience is living with our host families. Being able to live like a Nepalese was again, a challenge in itself, particularly only having a hot shower once a week! All of us bonded well with our families and so it was sad to say goodbye, especially to our six brothers and sisters. There were so many nights playing cards, learning to play chess, watching Bollywood movies and just drinking tea after dinner, chatting. These are the memories that made our trip so much more memorable. All in all, it really hits home when you encounter such a different culture and the conditions they live reinforces just how lucky we have it in Australia. It really put things into perspective.
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