“Orange Health “Rural Health Summer Camp

Name of the activity: “Orange Health “Rural Health Summer Camp

Country/NMO: China (IFMSA-China)

Program: Health Systems

Type of the activity: Education. Education on health issues for specific societal groups, either in the form of projects (set of tasks for a certain group over a fixed period of time), events (something notable that happens) or conferences (form meeting about ideas related to a particular topic, usually over several days).

General description:

The left-behind children in China refer to children who remain in rural regions of China while their parents leave to work in urban areas.The lack of infrastructure and parental support have led to a host of additional challenges for left-behind children like quality education, physical well-being, and healthy social relationships. To solve this problem, IFMSA-China designed a summer camp to provide general education as well as health education. A baseline assessment was conducted to exam their baseline knowledge. The health education courses include oral health, first aid skills, comprehensive sexuality education, healthy diet , introduction to common communicable diseases, Let’s talk about Depression, and HIV/AIDs Introduction. Featured activities included adapted Teddy Bear Hospital, adapted Epidemic Simulation, and SCORA knowledge contest. The children need to take the post evaluation at the end of the week. A general post evaluation took place after the summer camp finished.

Focus area:

Rural/community health

Problem statement:

The left-behind children in China refer to children who remain in rural regions of China while their parents leave to work in urban areas.The lack of infrastructure and parental support have led to a host of additional challenges for left-behind children like quality education, physical well-being, and healthy social relationships.

Target groups:

General population, Medical students, Children

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Children

Objectives and indicators of success:

Objectives & Indicators

1. Recruit at least 60 volunteers from no less than 3 Local Committees before 20th June. Provide health education to no less than 260 children from Henan Province during the summer of 2018.

3. Do a baseline assessment before conducting health education to evaluate the baseline knowledge of the primary school children.

4. Do a post evaluation after every health education course to evaluate the impact of the courses.

5. Quality Assessment of the health education. The average score of the post evaluation should be no less than 80 points.

Indicator: the average score of the post evaluation.

6. The comprehensive ability of the medical students has improved. (Empathy, problem solving skills, self-awareness, etc.)

7. Raise the awareness of the left-behind children among the medical students. Post at least 3 WeChat articles about the activity by the end of the summer of 2018, and gain no less than 1500 views.

Methodology:

The volunteers conducted the health education courses through lectures and featured activities. The health education courses include oral health, first aid skills, comprehensive sexuality education, healthy diet (Nutrition 1-0-1), introduction to common communicable diseases, Let’s talk about Depression, and HIV/AIDs Introduction. Featured activities included adapted Teddy Bear Hospital, adapted Epidemic Simulation, and SCORA knowledge contest. The children need to take the post evaluation at the end of the week. A mentor system was also introduced in the summer camp to give these children aid on mental health. Every volunteer was paired with up to 5 children. The mentors must give a one-on-one briefing with their mentees every week, and a group briefing every week. After the briefing they should fill in the student log book with some remarks. A general post evaluation took place after the summer camp finished.

Plans for evaluation:

A baseline evaluation is assigned to the summer camp participants (primary school students) one month before the summer camp took place.

Every health education courses lasted for a week. After a week, the students took a post-course evaluation on every health education courses they took.

When the two-week summer camp was done, a general post evaluation was conducted. Different questionnaires were assigned to the students, their parents, the health ministry, and the volunteers to conduct qualitative assessment on their satisfaction and opinions on the summer camp. The coordinator also interviewed the health ministry officer.