More than 2, 200 children from Mavoko sub county have been trained on proper hand washing procedures with an intent of becoming hand wash ambassadors in the communities they come from.
The training was conducted at Kanaani Primary School in Athi River town during the World Hand Wash Day celebration on Thursday.
The sub county public health officer Godfrey Mutuku said the children were from Kanaani, Mavoko, KMC, St. Pauls and Athi River Primary Schools, all within the sub county.
"We are today training more than 2,200 school going children from the five schools to be hand wash ambassadors in homes and communities they come from," said Mr Mutuku.
Mr Mutuku said the training that was conducted by public health officers from all divisions within the region, students from the Machakos Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC) and medical interns at Athi River District Hospital took the children through demonstrations and real hand washing procedures and practices.
He said they intended to empower children to help in sensitising the communities on best hand washing practices in a bid of preventing communicable diseases such as diarrhea and vomiting.
"The children are the most vulnerable groups to communicable diseases, our intention is to empower them first on the best hand washing practices and procedures so as to be safe as we expect them to go back to their nuclear homes and educate their younger siblings and parents to do the same and help reduce chances of communicable diseases occurrences in their families," he said.
He added that as role models to their families, the children will be instrumental in sensitising the communities and creating awareness on proper hand washing and its importance.
He said though majority of both the schools and homes in the region experience acute water shortages, as a government they were determined to ensure the region was completely free from communicable diseases.
"The sub county is disadvantaged especially the slums which experience acute water shortages, we however expect that the practice will be helpful and beneficial to all the residents including those in rural areas," he said.
Mr Mutuku said the training was timely given that the sub county is already setting up mitigation measures to the expected El-Nino rains that are likely to come with communicable diseases.
He said communicable diseases can easily be prevented through best health practices by the locals thereby improving children school attendance and performances and reducing amount of money spent by residents on medication.