Hand Washing Workshop at Sale Grammar School

Hand washing is the single most effective way of reducing childhood illness in Tanzania. Last year, we started collecting data after installing some hand washing stations at one of our schools. We found that, in just three months, we reduced the number of visits to the doctor by 90%. Buoyed by this success, we have been developing ways of raising awareness of the issue to people in the UK and encouraging them to donate to our hand washing project in Tanzania. Therefore, on Monday 15th July, we visited Sale Grammar School to launch the pilot of our Made With Hope Hand Washing Workshop.

In the workshop, we challenged Year 7 students to construct a hand washing station, similar to those in Tanzania, using bamboo sticks and string. The students also had to deliver a presentation to explain why hand washing stations are so needed in Tanzania and persuade people to invest in our hand washing project. It’s needless to say that the students were far better than us at building the hand washing stations and their presentations were extremely creative! We heard plenty of interesting facts about hand washing in Tanzania in the form of a song, a rap and even a short play!

The students’ hand washing stations and presentations were judged by a panel consisting of teachers and our founder, Eleanor. The judges were impressed with the stability and strength of the hand washing stations and the creativity of the presentations. We even had one group demonstrate how a hand washing station could be used as a shower!

Prizes were given to the group with the best hand washing station and the group with the best presentation.

One of the hand washing stations built by the students.

A presentation designed by one of the groups of students.

Sale Grammar School’s tweet about our workshop.

Here’s what the teachers had to say about the workshop:

“Increases awareness of problems in Tanzania and encourages team work, creativity and empathy. [The volunteers] are very well informed and communicate in an easy and relaxed manner.”

“Informative and interactive. Raised important issues. Students were fully involved. [The volunteers were] keen, clear, interacted well with the students.”

We would like to thank Sale Grammar School for allowing us to pilot our workshop with their students!

Do you work in a school and would like us to come in and deliver this workshop? Get in touch here.

Interested in volunteering with us? See how you can get involved by clicking here.