Workshop Nine!

Today I interviewed lots of young people who were visiting the Homeopathic Outpatients Department at GOSH.

I asked them questions like:

Why do you wash your hands?
How do you wash your hands?
Do you like washing your hands?
When do you wash your hands?
Do you think people have always washed their hands?
Do you think you wash your hands more when you come to the hospital?
How many times in one day do you think you wash your hands?

We had some interesting conversations. My interviewee's thought about the questions very carefully and had brought up some very relevant points.

Alanah (age 12) explained that it is important to wash our hands in order to get rid of harmful germs, but that we shouldn't wash our hands too much as we need to make our immune systems strong and practiced at fighting disease. She also told me that she thought we only started to wash their hands in hospitals when we had discovered microorganisms, which she explained was not that long ago.

Summer (age 12) told me that she thought it was DISGUSTING when some girls at school (not mentioning any names) picked their noses, ate their bogeys and didn't wash their hands....eeeugh!

Summer said that some bacteria live in dairy products like yogurt and cheese and that these
are good for us.

Bisma (age 9) described washing her hands with her brothers when she goes to Mosque.

Anya (age 11) didn't know why, but she thought that germs were probably green.

When she visits the hospital she makes sure she washes her hands a lot, as she doesn't want to get ill or make any other children ill.

Anya's little brother Noah (age 5) loves to wash his hands and uses lots of soap and likes to see the bubbles.

Anya and Noah have a dog called Mopsy. Mopsy is quite naughty and very greedy. He has long hair and easily gets very smelly and dirty. Noah and Anya make sure they wash their hands after they have been playing with Mopsy.