Malaria is one of the oldest diseases in the world, a parasitic disease transmitted to humans through the bites of infected mosquitoes. Despite extensive action by civil society and healthcare professionals, this vector-borne, severe, illness has never been entirely eradicated. Currently, people in poorly resourced parts of the world are most affected and, while there are strong plans for its eradication, the need for action remains pressing. Art is assuming a new and vital role in malaria prevention Holy and secular artists featured in ways to avoid this disease, mostly in encouraging paintings and prints that carry narratives on malaria’s timeless dangers, and in promoting the use of mosquito nets. Then, there’s the shining example set by children’s art.
The Intersection of Art and Health Education
Art has always operated beyond cultures and languages, bypassing spoken words and going straight to the imaginative and expressive parts of the brain to convey difficult concepts. Health organizations and educators are harnessing the power of the child’s mind to get important information on malaria prevention across.
Children’s drawings often reveal their unique perspective of the world and awareness of public health problems, offering very new ways of viewing these concerns. If children create and share visualizations around a disease such as malaria, their drawings start spinning out the narrative of disease for a community in a way that is accessible and compelling.
Why Focus on Children’s Art?
1. Engagement and Relatability
There’s an artlessness to children’s art that often works wonderfully. Pictures of malaria prevention by children – like any subject – can be sweet and uncluttered by details, and thus instinctively appealing to all age groups. A picture of a mosquito net, for example, might be both easier to understand and more usable for many more people compared with a more complicated infographic.
2. Educational Impact
Producing art about malaria is a hands-on, interactive experience that not only helps children engage with, learn about, and remember the disease and measures to prevent it but also equips them to discuss the information with their peers and family. In this way, art-based education can be more effective than its less dynamic counterparts.
3. Empowerment
Not only does this involve them in a community health effort, it creates a sense of pride when they see their drawings used to promote malaria prevention. This kind of empowerment can result in enhanced awareness and community action.
Showcasing Children’s Art in Malaria Prevention Campaigns
1. Art Exhibitions
Children’s artwork displayed in exhibitions about malaria prevention can be very effective in raising awareness. The events allow every young artist to feature their artwork, and also the audience to learn about malaria. Showcasing the artwork in different schools, community centers, and public areas will not only bring awareness to a large number of audience but also attract a dialogue about malaria prevention.
2. Educational Materials
This can include children’s drawings: for instance, a cartoon showing the correct way to hang a mosquito net could be used in brochures, posters, or other digital information aimed at people living in areas that are prone to malaria. This would render the advice easy to read as well as attractive.
3. Social Media Campaigns
Social media has provided a global platform to share and amplify children’s spread artwork, and social media campaigns to raise awareness and advocate preventive practice can unfold worldwide through Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts using the power of hashtags and networks.
4. Community Workshops
Keeping it light can be difficult, but hosting workshops in which children create illustrations about malaria defenses is an easy and enjoyable way of spreading the word. Once again, pupils, parents, schoolteachers, or the whole community can get together to paint or sketch. While they can brainstorm and create art to show their knowledge about malaria, they will also be able to socialize with each other and their teachers.
Examples of Successful Art-Based Malaria Prevention Projects
1. The Malaria Art Contest
One example is the Malaria Art Contest, held annually for school children in malaria-endemic regions. The contest helps to raise awareness, and at the same time encourages children to reflect critically on malaria prevention. Winners’ entries are exhibited and reproduced in educational campaigns. These visual booklets reach thousands of teachers and students every year.
2. Art for Health in Africa
Around Africa in particular, several NGOs have pioneered programs that use children’s art to help with health education. Often these involve art workshops in which children learn about malaria and go on to draw about it (supposedly this helps with understanding). The resulting pictures can then be used in new posters and figures, ultimately helping to marry creativity and health education.
3. Global Art Campaigns
International organizations have also started to embrace children’s drawings as part of their malaria prevention programs. The WHO and other global health bodies have worked together on projects where children’s artwork has been reproduced in those organisations’ educational resources, celebrating children’s art as a way of deepening engagement with, and knowledge of, malaria and prevention.
The Impact of Art on Malaria Prevention
1. Increased Awareness
The spirit of their art puts an effective spotlight on the matter and appeals to a wide audience, to make malaria prevention more attractive and memorable. Children’s art, if appropriately used in malaria prevention strategies, can produce an unprecedented effect in the domain of the problem. The distinct character of their art communicates the message and makes previously complex information more digestible and memorable.
2. Enhanced Learning
The way that learning through the arts engages multiple senses encourages creativity, and can build a sense of belonging might also help to explain how art-based approaches to learning can improve outcomes in malaria prevention education and other areas. Children who have been part of art-based malaria prevention programs will most likely be able to retain the knowledge they gain and share it with others.
3. Community Engagement
Artistic activity has the potential to act as a community-building force. Children’s participation can help to mobilize communities, that can contribute to malaria prevention. The very process of making and exhibiting artworks can spark discussions that could rally community efforts against malaria.
4. Inspiration for Future Initiatives
Recently successful art-based malaria prevention projects may serve as an inspiration for future initiatives. Hopefully, the beneficial effects of these projects demonstrate the potential of combining both art and health education for tackling public health issues, to bring positive changes in the lives of people. UPDATE: 4 April 2019 We regret to inform our readers that a portion of this article has been plagiarised from an essay published at Ideas Roadshow. The relevant sections have been removed. Further, the opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the views of this portal.
Unfortunately, the challenge of malaria continues to persist. What if showing children’s artwork became one of the success stories for malaria prevention education? Not only would it celebrate children for their creative ideas and breakthroughs, but it would also place their artistic creations at the center of malaria health communications to help mitigate the disease. Malaria prevention education won’t happen by chance or default. Those of us committed to ending this preventable and treatable disease need to empower communities to take ownership of their malaria prevention and work purposefully with them to reduce the burden of this and other deadly diseases.
With innovations to tackle each of these, the next public health issue tackled with arts will be anything but ‘unsexy’, and might help to make not just medical and scientific research, but uplifting community activities, a little less daunting. 315 words.
