Malaria is one of the most prevalent health challenges in many parts of the world, especially in tropical areas of the world. In fact, despite modern medical treatments and preventative measures, the battle against malaria has just begun. Play is one of the creative ways that could effectively tackle the disease while also being engaging to children. In this article, we will explore many ways to incorporate malaria prevention into play. This article can help children to develop a positive attitude towards health issues and staying healthy.
Understanding Malaria and Its Impact
But first, a primer: What is malaria anyway? It is a deadly disease that stems from parasitic infections transmitted to people through the bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes. Symptoms are exhibited as fever, chills, and flu-like illness, and without proper treatment, malaria can quickly lead to coma, Organe and Kouadio say, even death.
Young children under the age of five are particularly susceptible – as a disease, malaria has huge implications for their education and development. There are three-pronged approaches to preventing malaria: from the distribution of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), to indoor residual spraying (IRS), and antimalarial medications. Child malaria prevention delivered through play reinforces other community efforts.
The Power of Play in Learning
Playful activities that focus on malaria prevention can be a fun and engaging way for children to learn. By using fun activities and games that involve playing, music, and storytelling, children retain information longer and with more effectiveness than if they were merely lectured to.
Creative Activities for Malaria Prevention
Here are some creative and fun activities designed to teach children about malaria prevention:
1. Mosquito-Themed Crafts
Crafts are great tools for involving the children and making the malaria prevention lesson practical. Here are some ideas:
- Mosquito Puppets: Have children make puppets out of paper bags and markers, with three pairs of googly eyes. The puppets will be mosquitoes hatching from eggs, avoiding barriers, and then seeking human blood. Then, have them use the puppets to role-play scenarios about not getting bit and using mosquito nets.
- Insect Repellent Bracelets: Let kids make their insect repellent bracelet by threading beads onto a cord, and rubbing essential oils such as citronella or eucalyptus on the beads. This sensory activity is another fun reminder of the need to protect against mosquitoes.
2. Educational Games
Playing games is a good way to teach children about preventing malaria:
- Mosquito Tag: Play a game of tag, where one child is the mosquito who tries to ‘bite’ the others. The bite can done in two ordinary ways: physically tagging the other children with a small, flat object, like a card, or creating and following more subtle rules. For example, the ‘mosquito person’ can say ‘honk’ to someone who is not close by, and the other player must run from the sound, wherever it happens to be. The ‘bitten’ players can avoid getting tagged if they run to ‘safe zones’, which might be areas where they hear information about specific measures against mosquitoes, for instance using nets and applying repellent.
- Malaria Bingo: Create bingo cards with different strategies for malaria prevention and the symptoms of malaria. Call out each word as they say it on their card. The first person who gets a bingo gets a prize. This will reinforce what children understand about how to prevent malaria.
3. Storytelling and Role-Play
Storytelling allows children a chance to practice coping strategies, and in role-play, children can explore what it means to catch malaria, as well as what they can do to prevent it.
- Malaria Adventure Stories: Write stories about children who are heroes who have to figure out ways to prevent mosquito-related fatalities. Emphasise mosquito nets, repellent, and other preventive measures.
- Role-playing scenes: Create role-playing scenes in which children can act out malaria prevention scenarios, for instance, playing the role of a doctor teaching families about the use of mosquito nets, or about how to use and take care of a mosquito net.
4. Interactive Workshops
Workshops can offer a more in-depth learning experience for children:
- DIY mosquito net workshop: Get kids to carefully put up small-scale mosquito nets for practice so they are aware of the correct way to set up a mosquito net.
- Insect Identification Workshop: Have children learn about different species of mosquitoes and other insects, through visual and hands-on workshops. Use pictures and videos to help them distinguish between the vectors of malaria and other insects. Explain what malaria-carrying insects look like, and how to recognize and avoid them.
5. Outdoor Activities
Outdoor activities are both fun and educational for children. For example, I have been taking some children to a place where they can learn how to prevent malaria by using mosquito nets. What do you think about this activity?
- Explore Mosquito Habitats: Take kids for a nature walk to identify areas where mosquitoes might linger, such as stagnant water. Describe how eliminating these sites could help to avert malaria.
- Educational Scavenger Hunt: Set up a scavenger hunt with clues to find things that prevent malaria. Children can look for things such as insect repellent or mosquito nets hidden around the garden. They can then learn the purpose of the item as they find it.
Incorporating Malaria Prevention into Daily Routines
These playful activities might be complemented by malaria-prevention practices integrated into other everyday routines:
- Use daily routines to remind kids about malaria prevention Adapted from Daily Habits to Fight Malaria by Asia for Malaria, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Lauren Bradford Health Communications, Inc.
- Family engagement: Encourage families to engage in malaria prevention activities together, such as setting up mosquito nets or removing mosquito breeding sites around the home.
Evaluating the Impact
It is of utmost importance that we assess the effectiveness of the activities – so that children can absorb the information and demonstrate an understanding of how to prevent malaria:
- Feedback and Reflection: Get feedback on activities from children and their families regularly. Find out what they are learning, and how they are applying it to their everyday lives.
- Behavioral outcomes: Keep track of any changes in behaviors linked to the prevention of malaria, eg, whether children are more likely to use mosquito nets or insect repellent after participating in these activities.
Malaria prevention through play provides one path to make knowledge about one of the world’s most urgent health concerns both fun and instructive for children. Because malaria prevention largely consists of measures to keep mosquitoes away, there are many ways to bring malaria prevention into play for fun and games.
