SDG 3 Good Health and Well-Being

Goal 3 - Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.

Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development. Currently, the world is facing a global health crisis unlike any other — COVID-19 is spreading human suffering, destabilising the global economy and upending the lives of billions of people around the globe. 

Select a picture book from here.

While there are many picture books that have wellbeing as a theme, and many more that encourage young children to think about germs, hand washing and disease, maybe this is the place to ensure that young children are informed about the wonders of modern medicine, vaccines, hospitals and doctors so that they are not afraid of them. When school resumes I am sure that I will be asked by parents for a book about vaccination in preparation for their child being vaccinated. For many of my students they have not had a vaccination since they started school and their memory of it will have dimmed.

For that reason perhaps I would start with Peppa Gets a Vaccination. It is not a child pictured, but Peppa, someone the children like and admire. The story is simple, not too many details and positive as Peppa is rewarded for doing as she is asked.

Then perhaps follow up with Philip Bunting's Me, Microbes and I so that  students  realise that microbes are part of normal everyday life.

Here's the blurb:

You are covered in microbes - tiny living things so small that you can't see them without a microscope. 
Me, Microbes & I is full of fascinating and entertaining information about microbes, and provides young readers with a simple and fun guide to how things like bacteria and viruses work in the body. It is packed with handy tips on how to stay healthy, from enjoying fermented foods to taking care of your immune system, and also provides information on how to stop the spread of nasty viruses - including how to cough like a vampire, and the best way to wash your hands. 

In my booklet, there are just three things to do:

* Before reading: Ask: Do you like going to the doctor? What makes you give that answer?

* Write the title of the book you read. We read ...

* Complete this sentence: Three things I can do to make sure I stay healthy are  ...

World Hand Hygiene Day and Global Handwashing Day

World Hand Hygiene Day takes place on May 05, 2020. The day is declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) and encoures patients and their family members to join health workers in their efforts to practice good hand hygiene. According to WHO, every year, hundreds of millions of patients around the world are affected by health care-associated infections. More than half of these infections could be prevented by caregivers properly cleaning their hands at key moments in patient care. 





October 15th is Global Handwashing Day! This year, the Global Handwashing Day theme focuses on the links between handwashing and food including food hygiene and nutrition. Handwashing is an important part of keeping food safe, preventing diseases, and helping children grow strong. Global Handwashing Day is an international handwashing promotion campaign to motivate and mobilise people around the world to improve their handwashing habits. Washing hands at critical points during the day and washing with soap are both important.  

Neither of these days are for quite a while yet, but I feel as if I spent a large part of today locating books in the library that would help teachers have a conversation with their students about why it is important to wash their hands well and often. As schools prepare for the impact of Covid 19 the conversations are also turning to germs and what they do. A prep student actually asked me yesterday for a book on viruses. I don't think he was panicked, but rather, curious. 

So now I have a list of books for the teachers and parents and have put these books on display. See:

• Wash Your Hands by Margaret McNamara and Mike Gordon (one of the Robin Hill School readers)

• I Don't Want to Wash My Hands! by Tony Ross (one of the Little Princess titles)

• Germs are not For Sharing by Elizabeth Verdick and Marieka Heinlen   

• Atchoo! by Mij Kelly and Mary McQuillan

• Germs Make Me Sick! by Melvin Berger and Marylin Hafner

• Germs by Ross Collins

• Sam's Science: I Know How to Fight Germs by Kate Rowan and Katharine McEwen

• The Giant Book of Germs by Lorna Hendry