[I:http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/extras/pics/davewalkerimage8.jpg]With the help of a latex glove and some papier mache, an Ethiopian health animator knows how to get the attention of a roomful of villagers. Mathios, their instructor, has constructed a doll using papier mache for the head and a latex glove for the abdomen. An iv tube feeds water into the doll’s mouth and expands the latex glove, giving the doll’s tummy a plump healthy look.

Mathios begins to tell the tale of a family of five children living in a typical nearby village, a place where citizens use the streets and alleys as their toilets. As his story unfolds, water begins to spring from leaks in the doll’s latex glove tummy. The doll starts to shrink as the villagers are told that several of the story’s children have contracted life threatening diarrhea as a result of feces contaminating their water and their food. The doll suddenly goes completely limp in Mathios’ hands, fluid depleted and all life gone, as he tells his audience that two of the family’s children have died of severe dehydration.

This is a credible story for Mathios’ audience. They have witnessed it in real life too many times. Their village, like the one in the story, has streets contaminated with human waste. For some in this room today, the moral is evident and something they may be able to act upon. Educating people about public sanitation can lead to a marked drop in child mortality rates and a community’s overall prosperity. So how does a program like Mathios’ make inroads and measure its success?

To show visitors how the “latrine message” is getting across to his audience, Mathios takes us across town for a tour. “We have a model latrine here that is made from locally available resources. Using that, we teach them,” he tells us. A very tiny tukul a round Ethiopian hut), stands to the side of the village’s central shop which sells staples such as flour and sugar. This little tukul is a “working model” latrine that shows people how one is meant to be constructed and used.

“Everybody come here, and when they come, we teach.” There are some hired guards or maintenance people who encourage its use and keep the surroundings tidy. Public health instructors regularly teach visitors how to build and maintain simple pit latrines near their own homes, latrines no more complicated than properly dug holes with stone covers.

Sure enough, as the visitors walk along their village tour, they look up at a nearby ridge and spot a child barely more than a toddler dutifully dragging a flat stone lid back across the top of a latrine his mother had made for him. It is evident that the serious lesson of the doll with the latex glove tummy got across to this family.

Jen Long has been in the glove industry for 30 years and is PR Director for an online store specializing in Disposable Gloves and Healthcare Products where she is writing resources to support disposable glove users. Visit her library, Latex Gloves How-To.