Hygiene Promotion Box

I came up with an idea of putting together a so called HPbox that would contain everything needed to teach the kids about hygiene and importance of hand washing through a series of fun activities. Today I had my second workshop and the kids, as well as teachers, loved it. Since I would like to make this a sustainable thing I put everything needed (equipment, booklet...) in a box that could be used by the creches at any given time.

The box contains: HP booklet with all the activities, book Germs! written by Judy Oetting, posters, glue, scissors, pom poms, zip seal bags, textile colour,coloured paper, soap, pepper, liquid soap, glitter... everything:)

More pictures...

Fe(e)d the Street Project

 

The first Guerrilla project on African soil was a success:) Eeveryone pinched in and we made a delicious meal for the street people of Cape Town. Frans car was perfect for the job, I just hope that people don't stop the poor guy every time he drives through town, asking for more food:) We cooked pap (traditional south African meal made out of maze) and some vegetable sauce to go with it. Additionally we also had some boiled eggs, bananas and oranges. 

Equipped with food and determined to make a difference (at least in some peoples lives:) we hit the road on the back of a backy and offered "free food", "mahalo" to the homeless souls along the way.   One could just see how this suffering faces just started lighting up, smiling faces everywhere, "God bless you" or "you'll be in our hearts tonight" were some of the expressions of gratitude and-sings coming from everywhere. These are the people that everyone forgot about, living on the streets for years now, having nowhere to go and unable to find a job. I like the because they weren't begging, although some of them did run back to the car for seconds...sorry there are more hungry mouths out there that we need to feed:)

This is what real humanitarian work is all about. We are not just a bunch of dreamers, we know that we can't feed the world that way, or even heal it of all its ills but at least we made a little difference in the lives of the people we fed....if only for one day.

HIV workshop - high schools

After the tough crowd of principals and the teachers of the creches I took on high school kids:) This experience was even better than I imagined:) It was more of a mutual learning experience since they were more than willing to answer all of my "stupid" questions

Of course I started of with an easy one: "Raise your hands if you think that people in South Africa are not very faithful when it comes to relationships!" Man you should have seen how fast those hands went up in  the air:) eish.... They more than confirmed the thing I heard before, that cheating and promiscuity are not at all  unusual here in SA. Of course some "blame" it on their tribal heritage...since they still have polygamy. Xhosa people have given it up by now but the Zulu still practice it. It is no secret that  president Zuma (Zulu) has 5 wives, 20 children and some more fiancees:)

Imagine my surprise when after asking, "can a person get HIV if he/she has unprotected sex with an HIV infected individual?", I realized that there were still some youngsters that believed that you cannot get infected in this manner. Well, we live in 21st century and we all know the facts, and  lets leave the conspiracy theory alone for now, but still....   All becomes clear once they explain that apparently president Zuma publicly announced that he slept with an HIV infected person, took a shower afterwords and he was/is fine. Some shower that must have been:)

Here I gave just a couple of examples... as you can imagine, I was all ears and more than ready to put all my theories to the test:)

Check out a short movie here:)