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[HEALTHCARE]
Na'Saat Primary School & Na Phong Village (Kamus)
During one of our sessions in Na'Saat Primary, we gave away toothbrushes to our kids! Although this regime is not a priority to them, we felt that this can raise awareness, and advocate the importance of healthy teeth and gum care. At first, the kids were hesitant to put the toothbrushes into their mouth to brush their teeth along with us; some also didn't like how the toothpaste tasted. But after much encouraging, we finally got them to learn the steps to proper brushing. Some kids even had much fun and beamed through their foamy lips.
Other than toothbrushing, we also taught the kids the 7 steps to proper handwashing! Some of them helped their parents to farm, so their nails may contain dirt and soil, which may cause them to fall sick if they don't wash their hands before meals. As soap was not readily available in their village, our main purpose was to get them to learn to scrub their nails. The kids thought it was fun to dip their hands into a basin of water in the middle of their classroom. Of course we also did change the water regularly after the water got too murky...
There is still a lot to healthcare that can be done in villages like Na'Saat. What we did was just preliminary, but hopefully, the kids will remember (however little) the importance of sanitation and how higher standards of living can raise life expectancy too.
One of the most special things we did during our OSLP trip was going to the Kamu area to help those villagers who were infected with headlice get rid of these pesky pests.
Headlice really isn't as scary as they seemed to be once we faced them first hand. All we wanted was to get all of these nasty buggies out of our poor villagers hair! Most of the infected ones were kids. We separated into groups and went door to door to treat those who had headlice. We bought headlice combs from Nitty Gritty at a discounted price (ZAI Healthcare team!), and gave them as a gift to the villagers for them to keep for future use.
Nitty Gritty combs are exceptionally fine, and with the help of shampoo or conditioner (preferred), it allows the lice and their eggs to be trapped in the tooth of the combs, thus able to be combed out efficiently. Look at how our team became headlice-combing experts within a day (above pics)! Hopefully the villagers will remember the steps to removing headlice, and never have a problem with them anymore!
We also conveyed relatable healthy-eating messages to the villagers during our trips. One of their eating habits include spamming MSG into their daily meals, losing the original tastes and flavours the food provides! The reason was the expensive prices of salt and spices, and actually, MSG did add good tastes for the otherwise bland vegetables.
From the responses we got, most of them understood that MSG (in kamu language: Beng nua) was bad for health. Instead of asking them to remove Beng Nua completely from their diet, we thought it was a good start to get them to lessen the amount of Beng Nua they added into their food. "Beng nua an sam mai. Beng nua bo di." Meaning; MSG is not good for health, please eat less. Hopefully they will listen to our naggy voices!
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