Boomers Abroad

Description

Volunteer on a program in a colourful township just outside Cape Town, educating child-minders, parents and children on the importance of eating well and general hygiene practices to prevent the spreading of germs. These fun and interactive workshops are set up in an informal environment and involve lots of fun activities. The workshops also include lectures on the identification of symptoms for general childhood diseases such as chicken pox, mumps, diarrhea, dehydration, colds and flu. Basic knowledge about health and hygiene practices is something often taken for granted in more developed countries. However in these communities, it is severely lacking. By joining this program volunteers will be working to fill this critical void, brightening the future of so many children along the way.

How this program makes a difference:

Approximately 75,000 children die before the age of 5 in South Africa. This is partly due to a lack of education in general healthcare practices including healthy eating, general hygiene, knowledge on how germs are spread and the early identification of serious symptoms which require immediate medical attention, such as severe dehydration in infants. This program aims to target as many people in local communities as possible in an attempt to increase the levels of knowledge about healthy eating and general hygiene practices. This will aid in the prevention of the spread of germs and disease. It also aims to educate adults who have young children in their care to enable them to identify serious symptoms which require immediate medical attention. Hopefully by reaching as many child-minders as possible, we can help minimize this significant and tragic mortality rate of young children in previously disadvantaged communities in South Africa.