Anouk won the Genes Zone last June, here she tells us how she spent her prize money:
Hi everybody,
I want to repeat a big, massive thank you to all the students, teachers and people involved in the June 2012 ‘I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here!’. The prize money from the Genes Zone went towards teaching children and communities about schistosomiasis (kichocho in swahili) and I am happy to report that the money was extremely useful.
Children can acquire schistosomiasis by playing in infected water
Schistosomiasis is a disease caused by the small parasitic worm, Schistosoma. Over 200 million people are infected (90% of which live in sub-Saharan Africa) and over 700 million people are at risk of infection. It is a disease affecting the poorest communities and most neglected, vulnerable people. Babies and children are especially in danger of becoming infected and the damage caused by these schistosome worms can lead to symptoms like blood in urine, painful urination, stomach cramps, diarrhoea, bloody stool, anaemia, stunted growth, enlarged liver and spleen, bladder and liver damage.
Children drew their understanding of the disease
In Zanzibar, we are part of an exciting and ambitious project whose aim is to eliminate schistosomiasis as a disease from the islands of Zanzibar in 5 years time. Scientists at the Natural History Museum together with the Zanzibar Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization, the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative and other international partners, have set up a group called the Zanzibar Elimination of Schistosomiasis Transmission (ZEST).
We are in our second year of the schistosomiasis elimination project, in the first year we treated both children and adults on the islands of Unguja (Zanzibar main island) and Pemba (sister island) using Praziquantel, a safe effective drug that kills the adult parasitic worms. We also treated water areas for snails (that carry the parasite) and organised community-designed urinals and signs to stop children from urinating in the water.
Teachers, villagers, children and parents all took part in the awareness activities
The prize money from ‘I’m a Scientist, Get me out of here!’ was used to set up special awareness events in villages, called ‘Kichocho awareness days’. These were organised for the teachers, villagers, children and parents. The £500 was used to buy teaching material for children to draw their understanding of schistosomiasis and to buy footballs, ropes etc for simple games to engage them in the ‘kichocho’ days.
The money was also used to bring Zanzibari schistosomiasis experts to train the science teachers on schistosomiasis transmission and encourage them to develop different ways of engaging the community in schistosomiasis elimination, such as: New teaching approaches, educational flipcharts, kichocho teaching tools (e.g. cassette tapes), practical demonstrations.
Kichocho awareness days help to highlight the importance of schistosomiasis prevention
These ‘kichocho awareness days’ greatly helped our engagement with the local communities and helped bring the importance of schistosomiasis prevention to the parents, teachers and village leaders.
ASANTE SANA (thank you very much in Swahili)
Anouk Gouvras @SciAnouk
