Teacher Health Champions are Key to Safe COVID Re-Entry in Kenyan Schools
HopeCore designs a training campaign that helps Teachers provide a safe and effective way for students to return to school in Kenya.
Kenyan schools are beginning to return to the classrooms for in-person education for the first time since early March. While the opportunity for children to return to school is important, there are several challenges that exist - including a lack of sufficient mask supply for the students and teachers, lack of adequate hand soap for the hand washing stations, and no clear protocol for handling suspected or confirmed cases in schools.
HopeCore has been working diligently with the Ministry of Education to help design a safe return to schools protocol for COVID. One of the key strategies that HopeCore developed for Safe School Re-Entry During COVID, is the use of HopeCore’s existing Teacher Health Champion Program. Thankfully, several years ago, HopeCore developed an established program where two teachers from each of our 200 partner schools would be trained as community health teachers. They would be responsible for assisting with any health-related education but also help allocate resources when children needed medical attention.
Fast forward to 2020 with the Coronavirus pandemic raging across the globe, yet schools are struggling to find ways to return their students to a safe learning environment, despite the risks of the pandemic.
Thankfully, HopeCore was able to utilize their existing Teacher Health Champions, who had already been trained as Community Health Teachers. HopeCore designed and implemented a training campaign last month in over 167 schools, where teachers were trained on Safe COVID-19 School Re-Entry.
Teachers receiving education on Safe COVID Re-Entry provided by HopeCore
HopeCore listed Eight Key Strategies for Helping Prevent Coronavirus in Schools:
Additionally, HopeCore designed a Safe COVID School Re-Entry flipchart that will be given to all the Teacher Health Champions at every school, so that they can use the material to help educate their students on the best practices to help avoid the spread of COVID.
HopeCore strongly believes in creating content and educational materials that can be used in other settings as well. Organizations and educational institutions can access our FlipChart, free of charge below:
COVID-19 SAFE SCHOOL RE-ENTRY FLIPCHART
COVID-19-School-Flipchart-Download
