Alyssa Lowe and a group of Nepalese school children. Photo/Supplied.
Alyssa Lowe and a group of Nepalese school children. Photo/Supplied.
Alyssa Lowe is changing the lives of people in Nepal.
The 29-year-old has recently returned to the Third World country after writing a children's book in Nepalese about the importance of washing your hands, sanitisation and hygiene.
She is currently travelling, mostly by foot with a Sherpa, around Nepal spreadingher message.
The Mount Maunganui emergency department nurse was trekking the Annapurna circuit when the devastating April 2015 earthquake hit.
Ms Lowe quickly flew to Kathmandu to assist in a public hospital after she heard of the massive destruction.
"After a few days I ended up going rural and setting up my own nursing clinics in a remote village as the need remotely was much greater," she told the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend from Nepal.
Alyssa Lowe. Photo Supplied.
"The clinics involved assessment of potentially serious injuries, wound care, education, treatment of dehydration due to an increase in gastroenteritis and so forth.
She said she was greeted with the most overwhelming generosity that had ever been bestowed upon her.
"People that had lost their homes, their livelihood and even their family members were welcoming me into their makeshift homes, often buffalo shelters, offering me the little food and drink they had left.
"This made me not only in absolute awe of the Nepali people and their culture, but has changed my priorities and life perspective."
In Nepal, diarrhoea and chest infections made up for 45 per cent of deaths for children up to the age of five, she said.
"Due to lack of education, superstition around disease processes and customary behaviour, hand hygiene is not common practice in remote Nepal."
But hand hygiene was the most effective and cost effective way to reduce the risk in contracting those illnesses, she said.
It was proven that a change in social behaviour was the most effect way to create change in hygiene practices.
"I have chosen to work with school children as they are the future, they are impressionable and it is an effective way to reach large quantities of people, regularly."
She said she wrote a book for its long term impact as it could be read by many people.
She also had a soap recipe being written in Nepali with ingredients that could be sourced locally and would encourage villagers to make their own soap to sell or trade which, in turn, would promote the use of soap and provide income.
Ms Lowe had 1000 books printed and was planning to stay for three months.
"People die here for such unnecessary and preventable reasons. It is the basics that save lives here and it needs to be done in a way that empowers the Nepali people to ensure the education is passed on."
Translated by friends in Nepal her story is a basic one.
"What is soap, why do we use it, how we use it."
She will walk the country and spread her message until late May when the monsoon season sets in.
