The Department of Health has started to carry out school hygiene promotion to schools in the National Capital.
The Health Promotion and Education branch started the first week of health hygiene awareness on Monday 2nd March and ended it on Friday 6th March at St. John’s Catholic Primary School in Tokarara.
The team leader for the Health Promotion and Education under the Coronavirus Communication cluster, Glenda Suagu said the health promotion team would like to get to the schools, first because overcrowding in schools makes students and teachers most vulnerable to any communicable disease.
During the first week of campaign the team covered 83 schools including 39 elementary, 37 primary, 6 secondary and one technical school.
Although the group is small in number, they strategized to spread out so that they cover more schools in the week, covering 15-20 minutes each time.
The Main messages delivered were regarding personal hygiene on how to avoid getting the disease and spreading it if it does come. It is also to spread the general health promotion information on other diseases as well.
In every school covered, the team had the school to sign a pledge. In this pledge, the school committed to practice hygiene at all times by promising to do hygiene drill frequently as a school community.
Glenda Suagu thanked UNICEF PNG for funding support to carry out this program, which will continue over three months. She said having only one vehicle to cover the whole city was a big challenge and commented that more funding is needed to carry out this campaign throughout the next three months.
(Photo: Students of St. John’s Catholic Primary School holding Health Hygiene Promotion posters during the hygiene promotion.)