Development of Health Education Material for "ESD x WASH“

Reporting day: 2022/04/26/
Reporter:　Hirono Sasaki

Hello, my name is Sasaki, and I am a second-year of Master’s course student at the University of the Ryukyus.

I am currently participating in a project to develop educational materials related to the SDGs and COVID-19 measures in Japan and Laos.  I would like to introduce the development of health education materials for ESD✕WASH, for which I am in charge with Prof. Sugita from Osaka University.

ESD stands for "Education for Sustainable Development," and it is a learning activity aimed at realizing a sustainable society through proactive problem-solving activities that address environmental, poverty, gender, and other contemporary social issues as if they were one's own. (Think globally, Act locally)

This health education material has been developed with discussion with JC-GSHR members so that students can acquire the abilities and attitudes required to solve problems to create a sustainable society toward the realization of ESD as advocated by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT).

In the WASH team, we have developed health educational materials （target　is junior high school students）on handwashing to respond to the spread of the COVID-19. Handwashing is becoming increasingly important as one of the measures against infectious diseases. Then, the nudge theory has attracted attention to promoting handwashing and it has been reported that the introduction of nudges is effective in raising awareness of handwashing among school-aged children in other countries. Therefore, we have developed health education material for developing handwashing action plans using nudge theory to promote their handwashing practice.

Currently, we are working with counterparts in each country to develop even better educational materials by holding meetings to discuss the contents of the health education materials in order to expand the developed materials to Laos and Nepal.

What is nudge theory? nudge itself means signal softly with one’s elbow. Nudge theory naturally guides you in the right direction, like gently pushing with your elbow, to promote dynamic transformation in a natural way. In other words, nudge theory encourages action by creating "tricks" that naturally make people want to try them.