As part of its mission to promote water, sanitation, health and hygiene among the young generation, the Rotaract Club of Santa Maria (RAC SMB) through the initiative of President Ana Margarita Domingo and Project Lead Atty. Jose Angelo P. Pagkanlungan, in partnership with RAMCAR Group of Companies. Rotary Club of Santa Maria staged a FREE Medical and Dental Mission and Handwashing Orientation with Feeding Program entitled “KAMALAYAN, KALINISAN AT KALUSUGAN” last December 12, 2022 at the Balasing Elementary School, Brgy. Balasing, Sta. Maria, Bulacan.
With around 965 student-beneficiaries, this project focused on two (2) Rotary’s Area of Focus: Disease Prevention and Treatment and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. The aim of this project is to instill in the minds of the young generation the importance of practicing proper hygiene and the promotion of health and well-being.
This project is aimed to: (1) Providing easy access to clean water since the Philippines has a higher percentage of areas and people without access to clean water and sanitation systems; (2) Promoting the health and well-being of the students to increase control over, and to improve, their health through the conduct of free medical check-up, feeding program and provision of free vitamins and medicines and with that RAC SMB was able to somehow improve the current health status of the beneficiaries; (3) Promoting proper hygiene to encourage people, especially the young generation, to modify their actions, so they reduce high-risk unhygienic behaviors and through the conduct of lecture on proper handwashing and toothbrushing, as well as the free dental check-up with fluoride application, the beneficiaries were made aware and educated on the importance of practicing personal hygiene.
Under this project, the medical check-up was conducted by the volunteer doctors from the Municipal Health Office of Santa Maria while the volunteer dentists from the Kapisanan ng Mga Dentista sa Bulacan provided free dental check-ups. RAC SMB provided fluoride varnish for Kindergarten and Grades 1 and 2 students while the RAMCAR Group of Companies sponsored vitamins and other medicines for all beneficiaries.
After the medical and dental check-up, RAC SMB and RAMCAR Group of Companies held a feeding program where all students from all grade levels were provided with healthy food.
Ultimately, RAC SMB, valuing the importance of easy access to water, donated a 10-faucet hand washing facility, specifically for the Nursery and Kindergarten students of the Balasing Elementary School. In such cases, frequent and regular hand washing can be practiced in their school.
As a result, this project can be gleaned to have a huge social impact. Realistically, most of the beneficiaries, being public school students, are within the group of underprivileged where health and hygiene are not being prioritized. But with the advent of this project, these students were given the basic human decency that they deserve, being presentable, hygienic and healthy.
Ultimately, being the future of this country, the project produced a huge social impact by way of educating the students, as young as they are right now, how vital the prioritization of being hygienic and healthy are, especially when they reach adulthood.
In summary, this project provided opportunities to the less privileged children to become better people and citizens of our country.
