The Pledge: Wash Hands with Soap!!

Wahana Visi Indonesia Sekadau Office in West Kalimantan province, in cooperation with the Creative Indigo Production (CIP) and Female Catholic Association of Landau Mentawak village, has facilitated intensive campaigns to encourage the community and children in the area to adopt healthier lifestyle, particularly through hand-washing with soap.

CIP officers use short educational films to make the campaign interesting and effective. CIP is also the producer of the Indonesian version of Sesame Street children television.

Led by Yasinta, adviser of the Santa Lucia Children Group, the advocacy programs were conducted weekly for four weeks in October 2013. The gathering was not only attended by local children, but also by their parents. Around 60 people participated in the first gathering.

Attendance rose to 73 people in the second gathering. During this meeting, they played the virus game. They used cooking oil for body sweat and glitter as the viruses. Each group leader smeared thin layer of cooking oil on the hands of their members. Glitter was given to a half of the groups.

The initial ‘journey’ of the viruses occurred when the group leaders with ‘viruses’ visited and shook hands with the leaders of the clean/healthy groups. Some of the glitter stuck to the palms of the ‘healthy’ leaders. The ‘viruses’ then transported to the palms of the ‘healthy’ children when the leaders high-fived their ‘infected’ hands with their members.

Soon, all the clean palms were ‘infected by the ‘viruses’.

“Aarch…my hands got the viruses!” shouted one of the children.

The tutors asked the children to wash their hands with only water, but, they discovered that not all the ‘viruses’ could be cleaned. The next time the children were asked to wash their hands with soap. Soon all the ‘viruses’ were gone. “We need soap to clean all the ‘viruses’,” said Jojo, one of the children.

By the final gathering, participation was up to 100 people. At the end of the meeting, the children launched a declaration to adopt hand-washing with soap as their lifestyle.

"I promise not to forget to wash my hands with soap
I promise to ask my siblings to wash their hands with soap
I promise to train younger children to wash their hands with soap
I promise to wash my hands with soap until I am getting old."

As the snacks were distributed at the end of the meeting, Jino, one of the children, shouted, “Mam…our hands are dirty. We want to wash our hands with soap first before having our snacks."

*Herna Herlina is an officer of Wahana Visi at the Sekadau office in West Kalimantan | Edited by Hendro Suwito, Senior Editor World Vision Indonesia