Stories

Clean hands and happy songs for young minds

Teaching kids about the importance of clean hands with a little help from our friends.
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Mama Salome has a dream. She dreams that one day, every child in Congo will know and value the power of clean water. And even more, that every child will have access to it.

Salome is the Community Engagement Manager for Asili, our social enterprise in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s why she calls her dream the “Asili Generation” – she believes that Asili can be the vehicle to bring her vision to reality.

Clean water is life-giving. But as Mama Salome knows, so are clean hands… Especially for kids.

To get the cleanest hands, clean water is important. But you also need to have soap.

The impact that this soap will have is no small thing. It will ensure that for at least one year, these kids will have clean hands, helping ward off sickness. And more importantly, Mama Salome will continue to help them learn all the proper ways to use the soap, a lesson that will last a lifetime.

And while this lesson is very important, the most fun part isn’t the soap itself – it’s the songs that go with it.

Every day, Mama Salome travels to a different community, teaching kids the importance of drinking clean water, washing their hands, and keeping clean. She uses songs to teach them the basics. And she gives them a pamphlet to take home, which reminds them of the songs – and lessons – they learned.

But since Salome travels to so many schools, and meets so many kids, she is always running out of pamphlets.

“The children get so excited about the pamphlets,” said Mama Josee, Salome’s partner in crime. “When you go to visit their houses later, you find that they’ve hung the pamphlets on the wall. They’re really proud of their lessons.”

Mama Salome dreams of a world where every child she meets has access to the things they need to stay healthy – clean water, soap, and the knowledge of how to use them.

Today, thanks to donations from Cheryl and Jake Jacobsen, and Cailin, Ann, and Stewart Johnson, she’s one step closer. Thanks to these generous friends, we were able to get soap for 15 schools in the area where Mama Salome works – a supply to last a whole year! We also printed enough pamphlets to last her several months of seeing dozens of kids each day.

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