Impact of hygiene trainings on school children in Mozambique

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to gain insight in the impact of hygiene trainings at primary schools in Mozambique. These hygiene trainings are focused on the members of the Nucleo of Sanitation. This ‘Nucleo of Sanitation’ is a group of fifteen school children, which get hygiene trainings and have to transfer their hygienic knowledge to other schoolchildren. The concept is based on the idea that children share their knowledge with other children naturally (e.g. by playing with them). Interviews were held with the head and trainers of the organization which provides these hygiene trainings, with teachers and with school children. Many different factors appeared to have an influence on the effectiveness of the hygiene trainings and different actors are involved. The hygiene trainings are mainly cognitive and this study suggests that when the hygiene trainings are more practice-oriented a behavior change of children is more likely to occur. Furthermore, the absence of a protocol resulted in different perceptions of hygiene trainers, health teachers and schoolchildren on the importance of certain subjects and the tasks of the Nucleo-members. This study suggests that more consistency (of the objectives and resources) and more control (of the frequency and duration of the hygiene trainings) will contribute to relatively more impact of the hygiene trainings. It appeared that a relatively small group of Nucleo-members have to share their knowledge to a large amount of schoolchildren. It also appeared that a majority of school children in this study were not familiar with the Nucleo of Sanitation and members were not always actively involved in the program. The effectiveness of the hygiene trainings also depends on the health teachers at the primary schools who have to be motivated to continue with the hygiene trainings. Much responsibility was placed upon the primary schools in the period the sanitation facilities were provided and it seems that they do not have the capacity to maintain the sanitation facilities and provide the required materials.