Field Visit to the Evacuation Camp

On Day2 of the 2nd School Health Training, we conducted health education activities at two primary schools located in refugee camps where people had evacuated from airstrikes resulting from the conflict in Thailand and Cambodia. Both schools are partners of PTEC and BTEC under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
Multiple schools were operating within tents built with International Organizations support. Upon arriving at the schools, the school health lectures split into teams and conducted activities with the children, such as handwashing, toothbrushing, and exercise. Since this is an area with limited water access, there were challenges in carrying out hygiene activities like handwashing and toothbrushing as effectively as we would like. Additionally, because multiple tents were set up in a limited space, there was no space for the children to exercise freely, so we conducted exercises combined with games that could be easily done inside the tents.

We were also able to inspect the hygiene and nutritional conditions at the campsite, which reaffirmed the importance of health education. I was deeply impressed by the dedication of the local teachers who were conducting classes in the tent schools despite the harsh conditions. This experience provided an opportunity for us to discuss with the lecturers how we might continue to provide educational support related to school health in some form.