ダッカの小学校で家庭の食事や衛生状態の調査を通じたセミナーの実施　【2019年3月の活動報告】

ダッカの小学校で家庭の食事や衛生状態の調査を通じたセミナーの実施　
【2019年3月の活動報告】

By March, we distributed approximately 1.07 million meals (progress rate: 47%) against Euglena cookie distribution target of 2.3 million meals for this term (October 2018-September 2019).

1. Expansion of target products for the GENKI program

Until now, the GENKI program covered only some food products, but from April 1, 2019, it has expanded to all Group products, including cosmetics. In addition, we have changed the form of sponsorship from the Group to contribute in proportion to consolidated sales. By doing so, we aim to increase the number of children to whom cookies are distributed as sales increase. Going forward, we will continue to strive to improve the nutritional status of children in Bangladesh with the aim of realizing our management philosophy of "Health for people and the earth."

2. Conducting seminars through surveys of home diet and hygiene

The GENKI program provides children with dietary education and hygiene guidance to explain the nutrients contained in Euglena This time, in order to enhance the content of dietary education and hygiene guidance, which is the goal of this term, we conducted a home diet and hygiene survey for a total of 100 children at two elementary schools in Dhaka. In the survey, we interviewed about the contents and amount of meals for 3 days, and the habits of hand washing, tooth brushing, and nail clippers.
The daily nutritional balance in the home diet was high in carbohydrates and lipids (75%), followed by protein (20%) and minerals and vitamins (5%). Bangladesh is one of the most rice-eating countries in the world. In the morning, we eat curry and bread called ruti, and during the day and night, we eat curry and a large amount of rice. Side dishes include potatoes and sliced cucumbers, but I rarely eat any other vegetables. One factor is that parents have little knowledge of nutrition and are less conscious of buying and consuming nutritious vegetables.
Regarding hygiene habits, we obtained the following results.

Hand wash	86% of children at home and 70% of children wash their hands with soap
dentifrice	64% of students brush their teeth only after waking up 36% of students do it after waking up and before going to bed
Nail cutting	58% of students perform weekly nail clippers 21% of students perform nail clippers once every two weeks and 21% of students perform nail clippers once a month

Based on these results, we held a dietary education and hygiene seminar for teachers and 100 children surveyed. At school, we learn about nutrition in class, but we made it a game-style food education seminar with a focus on children's enjoyment of learning and practicing knowledge. Specifically, we gave children pictures of meat, beans, fish, vegetables, etc., and played a game in which each food was filled in a diagram of each nutrient. We also played a game in which children put food in empty boxes of colored nutrients, touched the food with their hands, and answered the name of the food. The protein deficiency was named after beans, and the vitamins were named after green and yellow vegetables such as tomatoes and pumpkins. These can be purchased at the same price as the cucumbers and potatoes you usually eat. Therefore, we encouraged them to actively consume these vegetables through the game.
At the hygiene seminar, I told them that they were not washing their hands, brushing their teeth, and cutting their nails properly, and that they had problems. We gave each quiz and asked the children to learn how to wash their hands, brush their teeth, and cut their nails, and why they should do it. For hand-washing, a Bengali hand-washing song was played for 30 seconds, and all the children sang and learned the correct hand-washing procedure. For toothpaste, I introduced that the bacteria in my mouth increase most during the night, and I used a poster to make sure to brush my teeth before going to bed. For nail clippers, I told them to cut their nails once a week and asked one representative student to practice the correct way to cut nails.
Many children have never had a major illness, so they were satisfied with their usual diet until the seminar. Looking at the results of this survey, I was very surprised that the intake of protein, minerals and vitamins was very low compared to carbohydrates. After the seminar, he told me that he would like to immediately teach his family the importance of taking a balanced intake. In addition, the teacher was reluctant to conduct surveys and seminars using class time at the beginning because it would reduce the study time of children. However, after the seminar, we received an understanding that the content would be very useful for promoting children's health, and requested that it be continued. In the future, we plan not only to continue at the two schools, but also to hold seminars for children and parents of all schools that are implementing the GENKI program. This time, the target was children, but in the future, we will invite not only children but also mothers to plan a cooking class where they can take in nutrition in a well-balanced manner. By doing so, we aim not only to deepen our knowledge but also to improve the nutrition of the whole family.

Photo-1: A boy playing a game that applies food by nutrients
Photo-2: A boy playing a game to guess the name of the food in the box
Photo-3: Children learning the correct hand-washing procedure
Photo-4: Local staff teaching how to brush teeth using posters
Photo-5: Girl learning the correct nail clipper method
Photo-6: Children answering the quiz

3. About school bag circumstances

What kind of bag do you think of when you think of an elementary school "school bag"? I think many people think of school bags. In Japan, there are many opportunities to see first grade children carrying brand new shiny school bags during this period. So what kind of school bags do children in the GENKI program use? This month, I would like to introduce the local situation of school bags.
In Bangladesh, there is no fixed school bag. Children are free to choose their bags. Many children use rucksacks because they have free hands. The average price of a rucksack is 600 yen. Instead of using the same school bag for 6 years in elementary school like a Japanese school bag, we replace it with a new rucksack about once every two years when it becomes old. It seems that character rucksacks such as Doraemon, which is popular among children, are preferred. However, few of these rucksacks have a formal license.
As in Japan, the rucksack contains notebooks, textbooks, writing utensils, water bottles, etc. Currently, the weight of rucksacks is a social problem in Bangladesh. A small 7-year-old child with an average weight of about 20 kg carries a 4-5 kg rucksack. Carrying such a heavy rucksack on a growing child can cause deformation of the shoulders, hips, and spinal column. Therefore, it is said to have an adverse effect on the growth of children. To solve these problems, since 2016, the Ministry of Education of Bangladesh has put textbooks without homework on the day as much as possible and instructed the school to keep the weight of the rucksack within 10% of the child's weight. I am. However, it doesn't seem to be very effective. A similar problem is occurring in Japan. There are urgent voices from parents and children that school bags are too heavy. It seems that one of the factors is that the amount of learning has increased and the number of pages in the textbook has also increased due to the curriculum guidelines. Even in Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology recommends "Tsutomu" to leave textbooks and prints that are not used for homework such as homework on the desk. In both countries, it seems that school bags tend to be heavier in proportion to the increase in learning volume.

Photo-7: A child carrying a heavy rucksack
Photo-8: Children carrying character backpacks
Photo-9: Doraemon's rucksack
Photo-10: Contents of textbooks, prints, etc. contained in the rucksack