Aswan - New York: Europe and the Arabs
UNICEF is implementing the "Our Health in Our Environment" initiative with the aim of raising environmental awareness among school students in a number of governorates in the Republic in partnership with the government. In Aswan Governorate, southern Egypt, the initiative was implemented in a number of schools across the governorate, with the aim of increasing environmental awareness among school students and spreading awareness messages in the community in which they live. According to the United Nations Daily News Bulletin
UN Daily News correspondent in Egypt Khaled Abdel Wahab shed light in the following report on the latest developments in the “Our Health in Our Environment” initiative, especially in Aswan Governorate:
“Our Health in Our Environment” is the title of the initiative adopted by UNICEF in Egypt to raise awareness among school students about the importance of preserving the environment and rationalizing water consumption, as Mr. Ihab Abdel Aziz, Director of the Water and Environmental Sanitation Program at UNICEF Egypt, says
“Today, we are at Al-Ja’afra School in Daraw Center in Aswan Governorate, which is among the schools targeted by the “Our Health in Our Environment” initiative, which numbers one hundred and fifty schools, with the aim of raising students’ awareness through six messages, including rationalizing water consumption and preserving it, dealing properly with sanitation, overcoming the impact of climate change, proper nutrition, and personal and public hygiene.

To achieve the six messages, we trained trainers in the Drinking Water Company and the Aswan Education Directorate, and these trainers trained 300 teachers in 150 schools. The initiative, which began last year, will continue for Two more years, where teachers in schools hold awareness seminars to raise students’ awareness during their studies, and this continues during the summer vacation period with tree planting, waste recycling, and the use of modern irrigation mechanisms that rationalize water consumption in schools.

Through the “Our Health in Our Environment” initiative, a number of technicians and workers at the Aswan Water and Wastewater Company were trained on the latest technologies that contribute to rationalizing water consumption by using energy-saving spare parts, as Mr. Mohamed Farag, Director of the Awareness Department at the Aswan Water and Wastewater Company, says:

“We use energy-saving parts in plumbing tools in the schools where the initiative is being implemented, which are supported by UNICEF, and these energy-saving parts are installed with the faucet. Without that part, the water flow is 12 liters per minute, and by installing that part, the water flow becomes only 3 liters, meaning that we save 75%, or 9 liters, in each use.” The activities of the “Our Health in Our Environment” initiative, which includes 150 schools across Aswan Governorate, included planting a group of trees in schools, and educating children and teachers about rationalizing water consumption, in addition to the safe use of sewage, as Ms. Amal Fahmy, Director of the Sustainable Development Department at the Education Directorate in the governorate, said:

“The initiative is being implemented in 150 primary schools in Aswan in all departments, including 60 schools in the Aswan Department, 40 in the Kom Ombo Department, 20 in the Edfu Department, 15 in the Daraw Department, and the same in the Nasr Al-Nuba Department. The initiative includes 6 messages related to the environment, including rationalizing water consumption, safe sanitation, proper nutrition, public and personal hygiene, and climate change and its impact.”

The “Our Health in Our Environment” initiative encouraged Aswan school students to come up with ideas that serve the initiative’s goals, and this is what we saw in the idea of ​​student Maryam to rationalize water consumption using drip irrigation inside her school:

“The idea came to me when I saw the school worker wasting water, and with the escalation of talk about the negative impact of the Renaissance Dam Given Egypt’s share of water, and the steady population increase, I thought of inventing a way to rationalize water consumption in the school using drip irrigation, using components from the environment, such as cardboard used in air conditioning, sawdust, and a plastic box used as a water tank, and using glue to stick these components together.” The “Our Health in Our Environment” initiative, implemented by UNICEF Egypt in cooperation with several ministries, works to highlight some correct behaviors in nutrition, public and personal hygiene, and to raise environmental awareness among school students about the impact of climate change.