School Feature: Al Ahliya School, Al Ghubaiba Sharjah
If there is anything that we love in our train-the-trainer Hand Washing Hero Program, it is the fabulous contribution each champion makes when rolling out their own trainings. Learning by doing is a demonstrated fact by these standards. By teaching others, hand washing heroes become even more knowledgeable, practice their communication skills and role model good behaviours. Don’t get fooled, hand washing is simple and complex at the same time! The program’s tools and games help participants adopt the right technique while benefiting the community as the knowledge gained by the trained trainers is passed forward.
Every school we have worked with adopts the program in a different way, adding of their creativity, collective effort and school ethos. Our latest newcomer to the Hand Washing Hero School community: Al Ahliya Private School, Ghubaiba Branch, in Sharjah added their own spice to the program. Get inspired!
At Al Ahliya Private School, 30 students from grades 6 to 12 were trained by Water Alliance to became certified Hand Washing Heroes. Their mission: educate the school community on safe and sustainable handwashing. Upon receiving their ‘Pass It Forward’ toolkit, each of them took time to explore the materials, add additional content and adapt the training to their own style. High five for this amazing work! Check out some highlights:
Maryam Mohammed Mohammed Farhan and Nour Ihsan Tabbakh worked as a team, enhanced the training presentation and added their personal contribution. They used storytelling to captivate their audience’s attention:
Sema Mohammad Kahoul decided to overhaul the entire experience by enriching the content and delivering her training in a totally different platform:
Empowering youth is not only rewarding but impactful. After 10 days of scheduled trainings, Al Ahliya Private School culminated the rollout of the program by calling on all their pupils to take an online challenge. They had one day to submit their answers to a post-training quiz for which the school would reward students with a certificate of recognition. As many as 494 entries to the quiz challenge were registered. Here is another example of a successful school embracing the opportunity and taking ownership of the Hand Washing Hero Program.
Lastly, it is worth mentioning the role that teachers play in this program. At Al Ahliya Private School, they supported the school’s certified Hand Washing Hero students by mobilizing classes across year groups to attend their trainings. Without teachers believing in the benefit the Hand Washing Hero Program brings to their school, the impact wouldn’t have been as much – thank you Nadia Ahman for your enthusiasm and care!
We support schools becoming safer and more water-minded communities by empowering everyone as change agents. If you too would like to offer this opportunity to your students, then we invite you to contact us and book a free training session kindly offered by our corporate sponsors.
Thank you to Xylem Watermark for sponsoring the launch of our Hand Washing Hero sessions in Arabic.