Lesson Plan for Presenting Hand Washing to Promoters
Level of workshop leader: Trainer
Level of Workshop Participant: Promoter
Duration of Workshop: 1 Day plus follow-up activities
This is a partial Lesson. To view the entire Lesson Plan.
Workshop Leader: Workshop Assistant:
Date: Lesson number:
Workshop Level: Number of Participants:
BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR LESSON PLAN
Workshop Position in Progression of Workshops:
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Previous workshop: Preventing Diarrhea in Children: What's First?
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This workshop: Hand Washing.
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Next workshop: Hygiene in the Kitchen.
Assumed Knowledge
An understanding that diarrheal disease can be spread through dirty hands.
Anticipated Difficulties/Problems
Potential difficulty to grasp technical information.
Solutions
Work patiently with Promoters; listen carefully to their questions
If a Promoter is having difficulty with technical information, hold a refresher workshop after the Promoter has been working with end Users for two months. The technical information may then have more contextual meaning.
Useful Internet Links:
This lesson plan has been adapted from the Food, Water and Family Health: A Manual for Community Educators , and from the Henry the Hand Website.
The SODIS website for useful information on waterborne disease and the PHAST Step-by-Step Guide: A participatory approach for the control of diarrhea disease. SODIS Flipchart Posters, useful workshop materials and additional manuals for download.
PURPOSE
Goal of Workshop: What Promoters will be able to do as a result of the lesson.
The purpose of the workshop is to reinforce the importance of washing hands at key times of the day and to provide training in the proper way that it needs to be done.
Objective 1 All participants will understand why hand washing is important.
Objective 2 All will be know the proper method for hand washing and be comfortable doing it routinely in their homes.
Objective 3 All participants will successfully be able to continue doing it over the course of one year.
MATERIALS
- Artist’s drawings/ posters ; Make sure that the scenes and people they contain will appear familiar to the community members participating in the workshop.
- Posters/pictures of Henry the Hand’s 4 Principles.
- Posters/pictures of Henry the Hand’s Hand Washing Guide.
- How-To cards without written words for workshop participants to take home. Make sure that the scenes and people they contain will appear familiar to the community members participating in the workshop.
- Large sheets of newsprint and tape.
- Colored markers.
- Bars of soap .
- Fingernail brushes.
- Water containers of the kind used in the community for cleaning.
- A water source that is normal for the community – piped water with a faucet – or a barrel.
- Dry towels of a fabric typical/available to the community.
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Background materials on development activity for Promoters to keep.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF LESSON
Introduction:
Activity 1. Hand Washing Introduction
- Introductions. Ice Breaker: Sing a song or play a game.
- Tell the participants what they’ll be able to do as a result of the lesson.
- Why do we wash our hands?
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When should we wash our hands?
Guided Practice:
Activity 2. Germ Activity.
Activity 3. How should we wash our hands?
Independent Practice:
Activity 4. Hand washing activity.
Activity 5. Role Playing
Workshop Conclusion, Follow-Up, Monitoring and Evaluation
Activity 6. Conclusion: Principles of Hand Awareness.
Activity 7. Conducting the first workshop.
Activity 8. Follow Up.
Activity 9. Monitoring and Evaluation.
Participatory Needs Assessment
Ask Promoters to reflect back on their training in Participatory Needs Assessments. Remind them that before beginning one of their workshops with End Users, a participatory needs assessment that signaled the viability of this activity for this community should have already been completed. If not, click on the link above.
BEGINNING OF LESSON:
INTRODUCTION
Activity 1. Hand Washing Introduction
Purpose
Introduce and explain what the purpose of hand washing is in relation to child health.
Time
60 minutes (including a 20 minute ice-breaker)
Materials
- Artist’s drawings/ posters ; Make sure that the scenes and people they contain will appear familiar to the community members participating in the workshop.
- Posters/pictures of Henry the Hand’s 4 Principles.
- Posters/pictures of Henry the Hand’s Hand Washing Guide.
- How-To cards without written words for workshop participants to take home. Make sure that the scenes and people they contain will appear familiar to the community members participating in the workshop.
- Large sheets of newsprint and tape.
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Colored markers.
What to do
Workshop Leader
- Introduction to workshop: Tell the participants what they’ll be able to do as a result of the lesson
- Introductions
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Ice Breaker: Sing a song or play a game.
Use practical examples of the why we wash our hands.
Germs (bacteria or virus) cause illness. Germs are tiny microorganisms that spread disease. The common cold is a virus. We don’t see bacteria or virus like we see dirt, but they are there. (Show page with different types of germs identified.)
Germs are EVERYWHERE (point out where they may be; walls, floors, desktops, doorknobs, pencils, etc.). A sneeze is a blast of air that goes approximately 200 mph - it carries tiny bacteria or virus in a mist (droplets) and spreads everywhere.
When you feel a tiny tickle in your nose, it is a clue that you are going to sneeze and you can prepare for that sneeze. Use a handkerchief or tissue or sneeze into the crook of your elbow so germs don’t float into the air or in your hand.
Hands can also pick up pathogens that cause diarrhea in the latrine, while defecating, by washing hands in infected water, by touching another person’s hands, by touching the ground where someone has tracked fecal matter.
Hand washing with soap is the number one prevention against the spread of person-to-person infection. Hand washing reduces the spread of germs that cause diarrhea, respiratory illness, and skin infection.
Give an overview of when we should wash our hands.
Key elements to remember about handwashing:
- Use soap every time you wash your hands.
- How you wash your hands is just as important as when you wash them.
- Unwashed hands can transfer harmful microorganisms to other people.
- Discourage multiple people using the same water for hand washing; change the water between each person.
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Share the hand washing message with family, neighbors and friends.
When should you wash your hands?
- After going to the latrine.
- After cleaning a child’s bottom or handling a child’s stool.
- Before preparing or eating food.
- After handling uncooked foods such as raw meats, poultry or fish.
- After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing.
- After handling an animal or animal waste.
- After agricultural work.
- After children’s play.
- Upon arriving home from school to prevent bringing germs from school into your home.
- After petting animals.
- After handling garbage.
- Before and after treating a cut or wound.
- Before and after feeding an infant or child.
Show the benefits of washing hands and a reduction in diarrhea.
Randomized control studies have shown that hand washing can reduce diarrhea in children in developing nations by between 30% and 47%.
Promoters:
Take 5 minutes to talk about what you do and don’t understand, what you do and don’t like.
