Page 44 - RADC Bulletin 2022

ENGAGEMENT
Ex UWEZESHAJI WANAWAKE
LCpl Monica Cacho
Ex UWEZESHAJI WANAWAKE was organised by one our Temporary Duty
Staff, also our Medical Officer in BATUK Medical Centre. The aim for this exercise is to carry out a local community engagement event using our medical knowledge, skills and experience which will educate young Kenyan girls in their health and wellbeing to empower them as women in the future. This will promote development of their life skills, sexual and reproductive health, and dental health education. The retreat concluded with a formal ceremonial blessing of the alternative rite of passage by the elders.
A little bit of background:
Less than one third of women in Kenya are empowered. Barriers that constrain women in Kenya are multifactorial including culture and education. BATUK Medical Centre supports “The International Day of the Girl Child”, a local community event to empower around 200 girls. This event was run in collaboration with The Mukogodo Girls Empowerment Programme (MGEP). The IL Ngwesi Council of elders and The Anti Female Genital Mutilation Board of Kenya.
My main task was focused on oral
hygiene and diet. I created an experiment using packing nuts (teeth), ground pepper (bacteria) and water (sugar) to explain and show what an acid attack is. I decided to make this lesson as interactive as possible and so I got the students to teach me after
I had taught them. I have learned that due to poverty and the location of the school, it was difficult to go out into the urban area
to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste. They use a particular type of brush called the “miswak” and this is basically a twig from a specific type of tree. They use salt to replace toothpaste as this was cheaper to buy.
The students particularly enjoyed the hands-on experience of teaching the correct brushing techniques as well as segregating the different food types into the good and the bad pile. I carried freebies including toothbrushes and toothpastes as rewards for answering the quiz at the end of the lesson. It was refreshing to see the children smile and laugh throughout the lesson. Throughout the lesson, the shy students began gaining confidence and speaking up.
With every experience, comes with its challenges.
• Due to the large number of students,
we decided to split them into four smaller groups to enable more room for engaging with individuals.
• Most of the students had limited to no English therefore it was a struggle to convey the messages. Luckily, the teachers spoke good English, and this was how the message was delivered.
• Our illustration boards and activities were planned to its simplest form and the use of medical terminology was altered into everyday examples/ analogies.
In the evening, we witnessed the preparation of the feast. A goat. Each part of the goat was eaten by specific members of the community. The kidneys were divided between the people who prepared the goat and were eaten as they were harvested in its raw form. There was a lot of singing and dancing around the bonfire and speeches from each elder to bless the girls. We
slept under the stars in our cam cots and mosquito nets and in the morning, we had a beautiful view of the sun rising.
Overall, it was an unforgettable experience, and I am grateful to be part of it.
42 RADC BULLETIN 2022