By Zachery Onyango | Project Leader
Dear Donor,
Schools are powerful platforms for strengthening community resilience. They bring together children, teachers, parents and surrounding communities, creating an opportunity to spread accurate health information and reinforce protective practices.
The continuing Ebola outbreak in the DRC, with 7,258 confirmed cases and 3,510 deaths as of 13 September, demonstrates why school preparedness remains important.
Development Alert continues promoting health awareness within and around schools as part of our wider community preparedness approach.
We encourage teachers and school leaders to reinforce handwashing, hygiene and responsible health-seeking behavior. Children are taught to communicate concerns to trusted adults rather than attempting to manage serious illness themselves.
We also emphasize the importance of preventing stigma. A child whose family has been exposed to an infectious disease should not automatically be isolated socially or treated differently.
Teachers can also help identify misinformation and direct students toward reliable sources.
Parent engagement is equally important. Messages delivered at school become more effective when families reinforce them at home.
Development Alert also encourages schools to maintain functioning handwashing points and clean shared spaces wherever resources allow.
These measures support preparedness for Ebola while also strengthening protection against other infectious diseases.
WHO's current response includes community engagement, infection prevention and control, surveillance, laboratory testing and clinical care.
Development Alert seeks to connect these public-health priorities with the everyday realities of rural schools.
When children learn healthy practices, they become messengers of preparedness in their homes and communities.
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