WASH United Event at Leribe High School
by Felician Mink, TED
The WASH United team with the World Toilet Cup
A just one year old toilet
Heating up the crowd
Playing the World Toilet Cup
The WASH United Event at Leribe High School was held together with Lesotho Flour Mills on the 9th of March. Lesotho Flour Mills is a company producing and selling maize meal and one of the biggest companies dealing with food and nutrition in Lesotho. WASH stands for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. The WASH United programme uses famous people, for example soccer stars, to raise awareness for these topics. The idea of the event in Leribe was to remind the kids that everything they eat has to go somewhere after it is digested.
TED sent a WASH United team of five people to this event. Also Me Mankau, who already supported WASH United a few times, attended. The team arrived at Leribe early, so it was possible to check the school sanitation. It is quite usual to see toilets that are not well maintained, broken, overflowing or very dirty, especially at schools. So the impression that the team got there was not very surprising. It is obvious that toilets that are decorated with shit can not be healthy. So you can say that WASH United was at the right place.
At the beginning of the event the famous comedian Lilaphalapha, who supports the marketing of Lesotho Flour Mills, heated up the people with music and dancing. The idea of Lesotho Flour Mills was to promote their products. Therefore they organized dancing, singing and poetry competitions and the winner in each competition received a maize meal package or a Lesotho Flour Mills T-Shirt.
Then it was time for the WASH-Games. The microphone was handed over to Me Mantopi and Me Mankau, who explained that every product of Lesotho Flour Mills is digested to shit after it is eaten and then it needs good sanitation to deal with the shit. The WASH United team played the „World Toilet Cup“ with some of the pupils and explained the message: The brown ball stands for the shit and has to go into the toilet and not anywhere else. Also the „Blue-Ball-Game“was played to convey the message that germs that are sitting on the faeces, can spread very easily and that everybody who gets into contact with them can only wash them away by handwashing with water and soap.
In the end the WASH United team also handed over some T-Shirts and gave away a lot of stickers with the WASH messages. The kids where so impressed and fascinated by the messages of WASH United that they came to the WASH United team to take a lot of pictures, ask for more T-Shirts and also for more education on that topic.
It was decided continue working with Lesotho Flour Mills and especially with Lilaphalapha in the future, because the WASH United program lives through its famous supporting persons. Also WASH United can benefit a lot from the talent of Lilaphalapha in promoting things and working with young people.
All in all the event was a grand success, because WASH United could spread the messages and in addition found new cooperation partners (Lesotho Flour Mills and Lilaphalapha).
New WASH-Champions
