Q
Eva from
from Enner Glynn Schools asks whether her students could laminate
and send their educational materials (which are board games)
over to a school in PNG for their use. Is this an option? as
it is important to these kids that it is REAL and their ideas
are used.
They have loved the challenge. Thank you
A
Great to
hear from you Eva. This is very much an authentic project. The
educational materials will be very welcome. In the Eastern Highlands
the schools do not have mail delivery so the best way to get
them to a rural school is to send them to:
ATprojects
Inc.
P.O. Box 660
Goroka
Eastern Highlands Province
Papua New Guinea
Their people working in schools can take your education materials
to schools.
Q
The principal of Rabaul International School in Papua New Guinea
asks why the project is geared towards Eastern Highlands. He
explains that East New Britain is going through its dry period.
Local villages living near the 3 volcanoes, towards the north
coast and south coast do not have flowing rivers. Most
of them depend on wells or carted water truck to have their
daily chores with clean water. I have about 4 students
who travel about 1 0 – 15km to school daily and use
the school shower before attending classes. The project is also
relevant and important to our setting.
A
The
only reason the project is geared towards the Eastern Highlands
is that there is an actual Oxfam water and sanitation project
in many of the schools there. ATprojects, the company
that run the project are very helpful and have said that if
any of the student's inventions are good enough they will use
them. However, there is absolutely no reason why your study
should not be in your local community.
Q
In In response
to a newspaper article about Wara Bilong Life, a local reader
in Dunedin, New Zealand, suggested that sending bottles of hand
sanitiser to PNG would easily solve the washing hands
problem. Your answers both in support and against this solution
will appear here as you send them in.
Q
9C would
like to know if schools in PNG have water drinking fountains?
A
I
am sure the international schools do have water drinking fountains,
but the Eastern Highlands schools where Oxfam and ATprojects
are working at the moment certainly do not. Most of them do
not have any running water at the school. The students collect
water from their village or from rivers on their way to school.
Q
It is me
Shevaughan, I amjust wondering if the Eastern Highlands are
the only ones affected by the problem of not washing there hands
and if not why are we not helping them as well? I was just wondering.
A
It is unfortunately
a widespread problem (which also occurs in New Zealand). We
are concentrating on the Eastern Highlands because that is where
Oxfam/ATprojects are working at putting in toilets and teaching
sanitation education. The people at ATprojects in Goroka in
the Eastern Highlands can help us and look at our ideas.
Q
Are there
bamboo plants in PNG? As bamboo sap contains a small amount
of sanitiser - Scott from Enner Glynn School
A
Briliant!
There is bamboo grown all over the highlands. The most common
is known in Pidgin English as pitpit. It is woven and used as
walls of the roundhouses. The tips are also eaten. Let us know
if your research brings up any more exciting information. Elaine
the plant scientist says:
Nothing
in our data base but on Google the Wikipedia does say that
bamboo has been
used in treating infections in traditional Chinese medicine.
Q
My drama/music
team has created a song/vid of how to wash hands and why and
require their song to be translated into PNG. Is this
possible?
A
There are
many languages spoken in PNG. Some even differ from village
to village but Pidgin English is the language spoken by almost
everybody. Helpfully for us there is a Tok Pisin/English dictionary
at http://www.tok-pisin.com/
Q
How many
children are there in the school?
A
The Oxfam
project is putting toilets into about 200 schools in the Eastern
highlands. The schools there are fairly small by New Zealand
standards at around 200 students.
Q
What is the
annual rainfall in the Highlands?
A
Wikipedia
says that the monthly rainfall follows a seasonal pattern with
a wet season from December to early April having mean monthly
rainfalls of about 203mm to 305mm. A dry season follows, with
monthly falls in the general range of 51mm to 102mm. The months
of April – May and October – November tend to be transitional.
Q
Are there
animals around the schools - do the children have contact with
the animals?
A
Yes. Dogs
and some people have cats. I did see a pet cassowary chick (which
was huge) once in a village. Pigs are very important as payment
in ceremonies such as bride price.
Q
Is there
any handwashing taking place at the moment?
A
Not unless
there is a way of collecting water at the school or kids use
water in bottle from home.
Q
Jessica would
like to know what kind of activities children take part in during
the day as this will help us to work out how often they need
to wash their hands.
A
The students
take classes much the same as you and play on their fields (rugby,
skipping etc).
Q
How much
do the children know about the importance of hand washing and
other basic health issues.
A
Not an awful
lot. I did some surveys with some students and found that they
all knew about the relationship between the malarial mosquito
and getting malaria but little about how you get diarrhoea from
not washing hands after going to the toilet. It would be interesting
to do such a survey with students at your school.
Q
Amy would
like to know - Are the toilets long drops or flush and are the
children encouraged to wash their hands after using the toilets?
A
There are
no flush loos. If the school has a toilet, it will be a long
drop. Some schools don't have toilets at school at all which
is why Oxfam are working hard at putting them in.
Q
Kathryn asks
- Do the children at the school speak English?
A
Yes. In the
first couple of years students learn their own language but
older kids can all speak good English and Pidgin English.
Q
Natasha would
like to know - how do they collect rain water at the moment?
Is their access to pipes for water collection?
A
In some of
the schools water is collect from the roofs into big plastic
tanks. Piped water is less common. There are huge problems with
pipes (being stolen, being uprooted by pigs, earthquakes).
Q
Hi
my name is Ivan I'm from Kelston Intermediate and I was
wondering if you use aloe vera for soap. My class did a experiment
on different soaps and witch is the best wee fond out that aloe
vera is the best and doesn't need water would you be able to
try it for your selves with the blue light test.
A
It
sounds as though you are doing some great experiments. I am
sure aloe vera is better than nothing but our expert Elaine
has given us scientific material that tells us that traditionally
aloe vera has been used in ointments and creams to assist the
healing of wounds, burn, eczema and psoriasis (a disease which
affects the skin and joints). But she says that if there is
antibacterial action it is slight.
Q
We
have a question concerning the highlands in PNG. We would want
to know if
there is a significant amount of insects (fly, mosquitos etc.)
in the highlands to affect the quality of the water? Thanks,
Alan, Arthur, Darian and Jim
A
Great
question. Pauline from PNG replys - iInsects especially flies
do affect the quality of water. We therefore carry out health
awareness in communities about the importance of protecting
water sources and also about how water should be stored very
safely as flies pass pathogens and contaminate water when they
get in contact with water if the water is not covered or protected
then the contamination of the water will be very high.
Q
My
students have used the translation site and have become very
disgruntled as they are having to look up each individual word
and some of the words are not being translated. I feel their
frustration as I too have tried???? Is there any other way we
can get our translation done?
A
I've
looked at all the Tok Pisin sites on the web & it looks
like www.tok-pisin.com is the best of the lot of them. There
is also the dictionary on the site as well as the search facility.
I
will ask the people working a ATprojects in PNG to translate
for you but if the kids are in a real hurry it's best they persevere,
perhaps making the text slightly simpler. However, do send me
the text (and the translation so far) and I will certainly ask
someone them to help. Pauline from PNG adds...
The
point that I would like to make is on the translation, I think
that what ever students write should not be translated into
pidgin because pidgin is sometimes very ambiguous so if they
do translate we might not be able to understand the original
context of the message so I think that it is best for everything
to be written in English and we can translate it.
.................
