by Goh Xin Ying
[Chantrea, a Poum Steung school student]
CAMBODIA - It is amazing how a group of young men and women are able to better the lives of countless citizens in Cambodia. The Salus Healthy Lifestyle project has indeed taken off on a high note. Led by Dr. Elain Metthew, Vice-President of Salus and Head of the Volunteers Committee, volunteers have gathered from all over the world to help educate young children about the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle and maintaining basic hygiene in Cambodia. This has been achieved through mediums such as local schools, health centres and regular village visitations.
Salus activities have benefited the locals in several ways. By educating them about the value of maintaing a healthy lifestyle and basic sanitation, they can live longer lives and also reduce the risk of catching diseases. Eating the right balance of food provides them with nutrients and vitamins that are necessary for the body to grow and develop healthily.
Through regular exercising, they can develop a healthy body and strengthen their heart and muscles. Physical activity also helps to improve psychological health by lowering levels of anxiety, stress and depression, as well as building self-confidence and furthering social interaction among themselves.
At present, the locals lack basic healthcare knowledge such as proper hygiene, thus Salus was founded to fill in this gap. We teach rudimentary health education like healthy eating and keeping fit, proper hand washing and infection control practices for common diseases such as malaria. Targeting over 500 children a year, we hope to promote a healthy lifestyle and basic hygiene to the children.
"Overall, the lessons were fun and informative. It taught me a lot on how to live a healthy lifestyle and to be more aware of proper hygiene. Thank you Salus, for the lessons. I hope for more of such classes to help me learn more about keeping myself fit and healthy," said Chantrea, a student at the Poum Steung school in the Siem Reap Province of rural Cambodia, when asked to comment on the health education lessons.
Across the year, a wide range of healthy lifestyle and proper hygiene promotional activities have been held throughout Cambodia. Examples include health exhibitions and talks at local schools and communities, annual health fairs at cities such as Phnom Penh and Kampong Saom, travelling groups of volunteers who circulate the rural villages educating locals abouthealth issues, setting up of public forums to discuss health and hygiene topics and many more.
For the past year, we have been implementing a sanitation program that gathers overseas volunteers to travel to rural Cambodia, educating local villagers on the importance of correct sanitation and hygiene. Research has shown that almost 85 percent of the population has no access to adequate sanitation [1]. Videos were shown and talks were held to educate these locals on the importance of proper sanitation. Through this program, the cleanliness rate of the villages we have visited has gone up by 70 percent.
In the forthcoming years, Salus plans to expand its operations, building additional Salus branches in rural China and Vietnam to continue promoting health education to Asia.
We would like to thank all our volunteers for contributing their time and effort to our cause. We hope that you will continue to support Salus in our on-going efforts to bring a healthier world to those in need. All of us here and the people of Cambodia would like to say, "Ahkuhn chehran" (thank you very much).
[1] Humtechnet. (2009). "Floating toilets" sought as solution for Cambodia's sanitation needs. Humanitarian Technology Network. Retreived from http://humtechnet.com/node/876.
