Student grime fighters help youngsters clean up their act

Form Four student Siu Hiu-ki, 15, spent three hours last Wednesday after school attending a puppetry course led by instructors from the Ming Ri Institute for Arts Education, learning scriptwriting, prop sewing and performance techniques.

It was all in a day's work for Hiu-ki, one of 44 student leaders for the fourth annual Global Handwashing Day on October 15. Recruited by the Hong Kong Committee for Unicef, these volunteers are being equipped with creative skills that will be used to promote personal hygiene and hand washing to younger children.

In teams of four, the student leaders will take their puppet shows on the road to more than 20 kindergartens citywide until the end of the year, as part of Unicef's new 'hand washing school promotion campaign'.

'We volunteered because we love to help others and enjoy playing with children,' says Hiu-ki, who is joined by her Belilios Public School mates Ngai Tsz-kwan, Lau Hok-kee and Fok Hei-nam, all 15.

A week earlier at Unicef's Happy Valley office, the students had a session with Dr Yang Zhenbo, chief of the water, sanitation and hygiene programme for Unicef China, where they learned about the organisation's water and sanitation projects around the world, and were taught proper hand washing.

'We didn't know it involved so many steps,' Hok-kee says. 'We usually just rub our hands with fingers crossed.'