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The Child-School-Community Programme Unit
Address: Institute for Educational Development and Extension (IEDE),
University of Education, Winneba, Ghana
Tel: +233-(0)432-22046
Fax: +233-(0)432-22397/22497
E-mail: peackom@uew.edu.gh and peackom@msn.com
Contact name: Paul E Ackom
Organisation
The programme reports:
“ It started in November 1994. The Child-School-Community Programme Unit of the Institute for Educational Development (IEDE) of the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana organises and implements the activities.
“We introduce the concept and activities to primary schools and involve all the teachers and head-teachers. We collaborate with the District Directorates of the Ghana Education Service and the Ghana Health Service in running our activities.
“The University is the main provider of funding for the introductory workshops and follow-up. We have had support from UNICEF (Ghana) in the past and they are still ready to support us. The ODA (now DFID), helped the University in starting the whole Child-to-Child programme.
“The Afram Plains Development Organisation (APDO), PLAN (Ghana) and UNICEF Ghana also carry out Child-to-Child activities in different Project Areas in the Afram Plains and Asesewa (Eastern Region), Mankesim, Abura and Bawjiase (Central Region) and Tumu (Upper West Region) and other Districts in Northern and Upper East Regions.” (See separate report.)
“All the projects are primary school based. In the University’s it involves all pupils in primary one to six in about 30 public schools in the Winneba Education Circuit. The age-range is 6–12. The socio-economic backgrounds are varied, but mostly farming and fishing.”
The activities and methodology
The programme reports:
“The main purpose is to raise and promote community health awareness and practices like personal hygiene, sanitation, environmental protection and prevention of HIV/AIDS.
“The activities are introduced mainly through classroom teaching and health clubs. We use stories, songs, poems, surveys, posters, games, demonstrations and drama, among others. We use the 6-step approach without any modifications, except that sometimes, some steps are repeated for emphasis and that makes them more than six.”
Health in and out of school
About thirty schools in Winneba Education Circuit are involved, this comprises nearly all the public primary schools.
The approach is used across the curriculum. The subjects are English and Ghanaian Languages, Mathematics, Environmental Studies, Religious and Moral Education, Music and Dance, and P E.
Outside the classroom there are Health Clubs and most schools have School Health Committees. Children are involved in “Inspection of body-wear and compound and giving of health messages at morning assembly.”
Adult members of the community are involved through Parent-Teacher Associations, though the holding of open and speech days, and by means of “messages from and practices of pupils at home and the neighbourhood”. Children also take part in national health campaigns.
Monitoring and evaluation
The programme reports:
“We use observations, interviews, games, simulation exercises and journal recordings to monitor and evaluate our progress. Teachers, children and parents and food vendors are involved.
Changes have been observed by all those (teachers, food vendors, pupils) involved. Some of them are:
- learning more new ideas about health topics, more methods and ways of presentation.
- improvement in children’s physical appearance.
- minimisation of littering of classrooms and school compound.
- children understanding and practising health promotion.
- children being happy to engage in health-promoting activities.
- reduction in truancy rate.
- awareness on the part of children of dangerous diseases caused by people’s behaviour.
- improved school environment and personal cleanliness.
- children having their own cup and using a common cup to fetch water from a container into their cup.
- children and teachers having corrected some notions and ideas about, e.g. causes of certain diseases.
Some quotes from research findings:
“Children have been coming to report about how some of their parents, brothers and sisters have been seriously taking up the Child-to-Child messages sent to them.”
“Pupils have also improved upon the food they eat as most of them have changed from eating only energy-giving foods.”
“We have been able to develop our own ways of communicating our findings to our friends and parents.”
“Through this programme, it has been possible for children to take an active part in my lessons by methods in teaching, especially the six-step approach.”
“Food vendors have been covering the food they sell.”
“Pupils do more supervisory work on their own, e.g. on the water they drink, the clothes they wear, and general cleanliness of the compound.”
Training
We assist in training newcomers to the Child-to-Child concept.
Teachers, circuit education officers, health workers (as facilitators), children (for demonstrations during workshops) are trained. Trainers include “personnel from the University and other sectors that have been trained.”
“We cover areas such as children’s participation, active methods, life skills, critical health topics, starting a school-health programme.”
Materials
“We use the Child-to-Child Resource Books 1 and 2, Children for Health, the graded primers on various diseases, Child-to-Child and the Growth of Children, Child-to-Child Approaches in Colleges and in Schools in Africa, Children’s Participation, Primary Health Education and Where there is No Doctor and Facts for Life, among others. We helped develop teaching notes on some health topics for the Child-to-Child Trust.”
Date: 2005
Source: Paul E Ackom (peackom@uew.edu.gh and peackom@msn.com)
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