27th Sep 2016
Bangalore
What is the source of Fluoride in groundwater?
What is Dental Fluorosis? Why does it happen to
Children only?
How to check if a person has Skeletal Fluorosis
or not?
What are the ways to test for Fluoride in
water?
How is Nutrition linked with Fluorosis?
What are ways to remove Fluoride from water?
Is Fluorosis reversal possible?
How can we prevent the adverse effects of
Fluorosis?
How can eating Til Chikki, Moringa, Amla,
Tamarind help in reducing the effects of Fluorosis?
What are the strategies to begin to work
towards mitigation of Fluorosis?
And many more..
These were some of many questions that were
answered by the safe water learning cards session.
Both me and my colleague Shreyas, were invited
to conduct a session for the members of the Arghyam group in Bangalore on the
27th September 2016. Arghyam supports many projects and initiates action research projects across the
country that concerns groundwater and sanitation. One such project is the Fluoride Knowledge
and Action Network.
So what are these Safe Water Learning Cards?
- They are set of around 70 cards are designed to help learning on Safe water issues, with particular reference to Fluoride issue in this case.
- There are four sets of cards – Basics, Debates, Strategies and Solutions
- Each card is color tagged with the particular set.
- There is basic content in each card to stimulate thinking and discussion.
- They are meant to supplement existing modes of learning.
There were 15 members who had participated in
the session. We had made arrangements such that each team had two members
seated in a circular manner. The group had members who knew nothing, some had
little awareness, some who have worked on Fluorosis. Given the lack of time, we
selected combination of 30 cards with Basics, Solutions, Strategies, and
Debates around issue of Fluorosis.
Learning card belonging to a specific topic
were distributed to each team were given 4-5 minutes to read and passed onto
the next team. The participants were
advised to make note of things they didn’t understand, important points which
are interesting or topics they would like to learn more. Once the set was
completed, the floor was open to discussion.
Both me and Shreyas initiated and facilitated
the discussion. Many questions we had asked were answered by the teams.
Some questions were answered by the other teams and this is how the cross learning
and discussion took place. We gave
relevant examples to explain some doubts based on our recent field visits to
Chikballapur and Raichur.
The same strategy for discussion was followed
for the other sets. The group held that the Flash cards learning was a good
experience and much simpler method to connect to the topic and have discussion.
Many of them who knew nothing were aware of Fluorosis, its types, the
permissible limits, the technologies for Fluoride removal, strategies and
solutions to mitigate Fluorosis.
Kiran Kumar Sen
Biome Environmental Trust and
Fluoride
Knowledge and Action Network
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