Health content

Welcome to the health content project. We're glad you are interested in joining us. This page will hopefully give you enough information about the project so you can get started right away.

How to volunteer

1. Read this document
2. Poke around the site, see what is happening and what you are interested in.
3. Take a look at the skills we need, as well as the jobs we need done.
4. Add your name to the volunteers list.
5. Sign up for our [list].
6. Contact the coordinator for the project you are interested in working on, or contact David Greisen if you are interested in starting/coordinating a new project.
7. Dig in!

What is needed

Skills

• public health experience in:
  • Nigeria
  • Libya
  • Rwanda
  • Brazil
  • Uruguay
  • Argentina
  • Thailand
• Write and speak any of the following languages:
  • Yoruba
  • Igbo
  • Hausa
  • Arabic
  • Kinyarwanda
  • French
  • Thai
• Educational Writing
• Illustration
• animation
• game programming

Tasks

• *Module Coordinators* - general public health experience beneficial
• *Module Localizers* - public health experience in a target country or target language fluency beneficial
• *Content Creators* - all are welcome. If you don't have experience in public health, please coordinate with experienced volunteers
• *Content Editors* - these aren't so important at the moment, but later in the process - round about April - we will need lots of people focused on making the content into a focussed, coherent and polished whole.

Project Overview

Philosophy

Health education is fundamentally different from most other learning that will happen on the laptop. In math science and other academic subjects, you don't want kids doing things by rote, you want them to fundamentally understand what they are doing and why before they start doing it or as they are doing it. In health education, children need healthy habits even before they have the capacity to fully understand why those habits are important. Additionally, an understanding of the health issues does not automatically lead to healthy habits - I know biologists who do not always wash their hands after using the restroom. Habits learned as young children are powerful. Habits learned as young children and subsequently reinforced through a thorough understanding of the underlying reasons are even more powerful. Health education that ignores either component is incomplete.