Dhammayietra 22: Avian Influenza prevention during the annual monks' peace walk in Cambodia

By Tongngy Kaing

March 20, 2012

March 10-11 | March 12 | March 13

March 12, 2012

Figure 10: Monk's meeting began early at 4 am but I joined them at almost 5 am.

The first day of Dhammayietra 22 did not begin with walking. On the first day, monks were divided into nine groups and sent to nine different communities in three sankats. Each group will have to teach between two and four schools on the first day.

Figure 11: Monks and materials including soaps were transported on the locally-designed vehicles to schools at a distance of less than 10 kilometers.

Figure 12: By 6 am, everyone is ready for the adventure, without breakfast yet.

Figure 13: Training at the first primary school began at 7:40 am, and there were about 200 students.

Figure 14: Protecting their community against H5N1 by washing hands was one of the main topics in the student training. The rest were the main concepts of Buddhism, peace and violence, environment, health, and social issues.

Figure 15: The monks demonstrated hand washing while kids were observing carefully before a few of them would be invited to show.

Figure 16: Time for kids to show.

Figure 17: There were not enough soap for everyone, so Syvorn decided to allow the teachers to give soaps to students who really needed to improve their personal hygiene with soap.

Figure 18: The second school was bigger with about 300 students. When we arrived, around 100 members of the public were also waiting with students.

Figure 19: When it was time to show hand washing, everyone watched interestedly.

Figure 20: "To prevent bird flu, washing hands with soap is important, but ash is ok if there is no soap," a monk said while a student demonstrating hand washing.

Figure 21: The public was also invited to practice hand washing.

Figure 22: Posters illustrating proper hand washing were also displayed at each school.

Figure 23: Plenty of food and drinks were offered to the monks after the training.

The school trainings finished in the morning because some schools within the neighborhood combined their students, so there were only one or two trainings.

In the late afternoon there was another meeting for logistic preparation for the real walk the next day. The meeting was from 4pm to 5pm.

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