YOUNGEST COMMUNITY LEADER IN HYGIENE PROMOTION

Ghazala, a nine-year-old girl from a small village of Kohistan, is the only young girl in her village who attends her school regularly. She, along with her siblings used to suffer from diarrhea frequently and was mostly under treatment at the BHU hospital. During the emergency response of COVID-19, the project team of PMS with the financial support of Kindernothilfe (KNH) started short time assistance for the vulnerable communities of Kollai Pallas Kohistan. PMS provided hygiene promotion material for children (awareness raising on COVID -19), conducted awareness-raising sessions, and provided hygiene kits for children (including soaps and sanitization material). After attending these hygiene sessions in school, Ghazala is practically implementing this knowledge and asking her friends and siblings to do the same by spreading awareness on cleanliness. Alongside this, the same community has started running parallel groups comprising of 15 to 18 children who are not attending or have attended school in the recent past on hygiene and cleanliness practices for them to learn and increase school attendance.