Little Doctors – Romania (FASMR)

Name of the activity: Little Doctors

Country/NMO: Romania (FASMR)

Program: Children Health & Rights

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

Romania has an important education problem with a large impact in the public health area. Wrong notions about hygiene, the human body and first-aid are passed down from generation to generation and there are no effective means of breaking this vicious cycle. Our activity plans to change that by using medical students as teachers and primary school children as beneficiaries. By teaching them notions about the human body, road safety measures, hygiene, first aid, nutrition and healthy lifestyles over the course of several weeks, we plan to educate the future generations and their families along with them by providing proper information and materials. Evaluation forms, local and national contests are means to quantify our results and pass them on to the authorities with the hope of initiating a nation-wide change on health and medical education.

Focus area:

Children & healthy habits (physical activity, healthy eating, hygiene, etc), Children’s rights with emphasis on the right to health and access to healthcare services, Basic First-Aid Courses

Problem statement:

The Institute of Public Health of Bucharest claims that a Romanian citizen uses on average four soaps and one deodorant per year, almost 50% of the population doesn’t wash their hands after they use the toilet and 25% not even after they change dirty dippers. Those are bad habits which are passed along from generation to generation and education is the only thing that can change it. The problem is that we do not have a comprehensive curricula for primary school where basic hygiene, lifestyle and life support information is taught or provided.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The beneficiaries of our program are children enrolled in the primary schools( 2nd to 4th graders), who are taught by medical students courses about the human body, road safety measures, hygiene, first aid, nutrition and healthy lifestyle. An indirect group of beneficiaries are the parents and family who join the children in the learning process and this way we have a broader audience.

Objectives and indicators of success:

Teach the courses on human body, road safety measures, hygiene, first aid, nutrition and healthy lifestyle to 7000-8000 children and reach 5000 families over the 10 month period (October 2017 to July 2018).
– feedback forms filled by the children with the help of our students
Advocate for a mandatory health education curricula for primary school
– regional/national press releases
– meetings with regional/national health or education state representatives

Methodology:

Step 1: Finding Primary School willing to join our cause and allow out students to teach the children.
Step 2: Preparing the courses and the students for the teaching activity
Step 3: Teaching about the human body, road safety measures, hygiene, first aid, nutrition and healthy lifestyle over the course of 7 weeks
Step 4: Evaluating the information the children gathered during the learning activities
Step 5: Encouraging the most active of the children to join a national contest and receive credit for their work
Step 6: Making press releases to promote the activity and present the gathered data to health or education state representatives

Plans for evaluation:

1. A local evaluation form that every child enrolled in the activity must fill to see what they learned from the courses
2. Feedback provided by children to see how they perceived the educational activity regarding health
3. Keeping count of the local, regional and national press releases
4. Creating a database of influencers willing to join our cause