Fighting Anemia And Dengue With Some Art

CATACAOS, Peru - The Last Supper at 003 Kinder School is on scene. The moment which the Catholicism recognizes the trans-substantiation of the bread and the wine into the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ is performed by 3-to-5-year-old children studying over there. There are seven dishes prepared around following an old Holy Week's local tradition - The Seven Meals.

For Qali Warma, a Peruvian government food compplementary programme, the celebration has been an opportunity to introduce the consumption of iron-rich food, so fighting the anemia and the malnutrition.

The buffet included rice, fish, corn, yucca, sweet potato, qinwa, and especially cow and goat blood, which iron concentration is very high and it was pointed out by the local Health officials as an accessible choice for improving the nutritional quality of boys and girls. The producers of the activity assure the kids left empty dishes.

The school's principal Cristina Chunga Goicochea says the teachers encourage the 228 students for eating healthy, while Qali Warma attends more than 10.400 children in more than 70 schools across Catacaos District by providing them clean and different meals for keeping the attention awake during classes

But another concern for local authorities is dengue, zika, and chikungunya, three viral diseases produced by the same vector, the Aedes aeghypti mosquito. That is why the NGO Care Perú summoned the theatre director and writter Rafael Sime for producing a play which could educate high-school students about prevention.

Sime wrote Don Zikario Isn't From This Neighborhood, an allegory showing a new member moving in the block, attracting mosquitoes to be nursed at his home. Casting Catacaos-native Jacobo Villegas and Sagrado Corazón de Jesús high-schools students, he is performing the play in association with the Local Committe for Health Management (CLAS in Spanish).

The local center's chief Neil Velarde Chero asked the students for joining the CLAS in the effort to stop the mosquito advance, basically by covering all recipients holding clean water, where the insect prefers to reproduce.

The play was performed twice in two schools of Catacaos City, reaching almost 1500 students. How much successful could be both efforts by using the art? Only time will give them the reason, or force them to review and assume a new strategy.

The photos on this post were provided by MIDIS and Care Perú.