Africa child education advocates Project Creed create books for health Rwanda

Lys Anzia – WNN Breaking

A Project Creed book by Dani Siems teaches children the importance of washing hands for better health. Image: Project Creed

(WNN) LOS ANGELES, California: Project CREED, a social enterprise providing locally-inspired health education books and materials to children in developing countries is gearing up for a stronger outreach to Rwanda for 2012. The launch includes a new website with Project CREED’s focus on books, education and literacy in Africa to “make a diference in Rwanda” with children’s health.

Project CREED’s books are purchased, utilized and distributed by non-governmental, public and private organizations working in the field directly with communities to improve public health knowledge and outcomes. In addition, the books are sold on Project CREED’s website in its “Buy a Book, Give a Book” program. When someone purchases a book, they will receive a digital copy, while a printed hardcopy of the book is sent to its target community.

CREED, which stands for Children’s Roots of Enduring Educational Development, embodies Project CREED’s philosophy of creating a lasting cycle of opportunity for communities so that they have essential educational tools to lead healthy lives.

The books combine lessons on sanitation, hygiene and public health with local storytelling. Currently, Project CREED offers two books, Cleaning With Water is Easy. Cleaning Water is Hard. and Always Wash Your Hands. These books are currently being distributed in Rwanda, while Always Wash Your Hands is being translated into multiple languages for universal publication. Projects in El Savaldor, India and China are also under way, and books for these communities will become available this year.

Originally developed by child advocates ad female entrepreneurs and sisters, Dani Siems and Lisa Morgan Wallace, Project CREED was designed to develop community-directed health education children’s books for underdeveloped regions to improve health outcomes. Unlike other global health organizations, Project CREED engages cooperatively with communities and partners in order to create innovative, educationally-appropriate and culturally-respectful children’s books.

“Children are the future of Rwanda as well as other developing countries and they need to know just as much about clean water and sanitation as adults in the community,” said Dani Siems, Co-Founder and Executive Director. “Not only will this educate them for a healthier future, but it will also have a wider ripple effect within the community. Children will learn, go home, tell their mothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and peers, further spreading these health education lessons across the region.”

“A highlight of my time with Project CREED was getting to see the book taken first-hand to Rwanda and see it in practice among children,” said Jacob McCleish, Project Advisor. “Parents would come running with their kids to hear stories because there aren’t books like this there,” he explains. “There was a family in one of my classes that used to go to the hospital on a weekly basis with diarrhea. Months after taking the clean water class and beginning to practice the clean water hygiene things that we had taught them, they were not making trips to the hospital any longer,” added Darlene Siems, Health Education Advisor.

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Project Creed’s Co-Founder and Executive Director shares her inspiration for starting a book program for children in Rwanda, Africa that brings important knowledge to kids who can be saved from disease if they know and find out more about how to safely wash their hands. Many environments Rwanda suffer from a shortage of clean potable water where knowledge about sanitation is often missing. This 9:27 min video is part of a new push for a January 2012 Project CREED program outreach.
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This breaking story has been brought to you by WNN – Women News Network in cooperation with Project Creed.

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