Child-to-Child Approach
"Child-to-Child ideas and activities represent an approach to health education. They do not constitute an alternative programme. It is more accurate and beneficial to view Child-to-Child activities as components that may be integrated with broader health education programmes that are either at the planning stage or already in operation.
"The distinguishing characteristics of Child-to-Child are the direct involvement of children in the process of health education and promotion and the nature of their involvement...
"We see children as agents of change, not megaphones to transmit adult messages..."
There are 6 steps:
"The distinguishing characteristics of Child-to-Child are the direct involvement of children in the process of health education and promotion and the nature of their involvement...
"We see children as agents of change, not megaphones to transmit adult messages..."
There are 6 steps:
- Identifying a local health issue and understanding it well
- Finding out more about the health issue
- Discussing what's been found out and planning action
- Taking action
- Evaluation: discussing results
- Discussing how we can be more effective next time and sustain action
Children and/or their teacher/facilitator identify a priority health issue. The issue chosen may relate to a stated objective of the school curriculum or syllabus, or to a health campaign taking place in the community. Once an issue is identified, the children carry out activities designed to increase their understanding of it.
This step involves children in further information gathering activities. Some of these activities may take place inside the school, while others might take place in the community or at home. Ideally, these activities help children to learn how to gather and document information and develop important communication skills.
Here the children organize their findings and use them as a basis for planning action in relation to specific health problems they have identified during step 2. The teacher/facilitator can take part in the planning process, and help children to distinguish between correct and incorrect information they might have gathered.
The children undertake the activities planned at step 3. These might take place in school, community or home, depending on the nature of the health issue chosen. The type of activities undertaken may also depend on local customs and the nature of the relationships in the community, including between the school and community
The children and their teacher/facilitator evaluate the effectiveness or otherwise of their activities. If unexpected problems have been encountered, it is important for these to be discussed.
Step 6 invites children to improve upon the activities they implemented at step 4 and, if appropriate, to repeat or continue their action.
Comments
Interesting
the approach sounds simply and systematic. Am sure children like it.
Joseph Agula Ogoror
CRY Uganda
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