With middle and high school age groups/ even adults!
Integrating the 3 Rs: Writing and Reading the key words and subsequently sentences in local language and playing language games will happen with each step given below for which facilitator has to be prepared from before
Are there people currently suffering from Malaria . How do people know it is Malaria ? What are the symptoms ?
Do they get tests done ? Where ? What do they think the test consists of ? Do they think they can do the tests themselves ?
Do they know how Malaria happens ? If yes, how did they “know” ? What are the details they know ? What do the school text books say ? Facilitator should have read the text book
What do they know about the life cycle of a mosquito ? What all stages have they actually seen ? What do they know about the types of mosquitoes , their food , resting place , likes – dislikes , seasonal preferences etc. Facilitator to be ready with pictorial life cycle of mosquito . Best would be to get an audiovisual of the life cycle of mosquito and a written account of the above apart from what is there in school text book
This should be followed by a tour to different prime locations in the village where mosquito lay eggs, rest , multiply etc. Here the use of microscope to look at real life mosquito stages would be very exciting
What all villagers do to drive away or kill mosquitoes ? Their own record of the use of mosquito net and issues related to that . Facilitator to add whatever is known today of keeping away mosquitoes including ways of destroying eggs.
Possible egg destroying methods to be done as practical
The story of “malaria discovery” by Ronald Ross ( He was one of the first Nobel Prize winners )
What medicine do they take when they have Malaria ? From where do they get the medicines ? Do they know the origin/source of the medicine ? Story of cinchona – quinine
The “science” of malaria . The Plasmodiums . Different kinds. Their lifecycle within our bodies and inside the mosquito and what leads to our “illness” . The various side effects of malaria . A film on Plasmodiums would be wonderful
A survey of all villagers —each person , age, when all did they have malaria –year – month . So one would know how many times every person had malaria. One could do various things with this data . ( % of villagers who have malaria in a year ; average times a 20/30/40 year old person has had malaria , the peak months and lowest malaria months etc )
Young people can actually learn to make blood slides and check under microscope to see if there is malaria . So this could be tried
This “course” should result in villagers together deciding to take numerous measures to eradicate mosquitoes and malaria from their village.
Another interesting exercise could be re-writing the school text book chapter on this topic after the module is completed and actions undertaken
The next course / module could be on Diarrhea and that would involve learning about bacteria and other pathogens, about flies , the issue of safe water – sanitation –some basic rules of hygiene
Resources:
- Local PHC/ doctors/ community health NGOS
- The Mosquito and Malaria research centre
- Govt of India ‘s audio visual movies- District mobile film unit . The District CMO or whoever is in charge of Malaria should be asked if they have relevant written and audiovisuals.
Nai Taleem for today and tomorrow 