Thank you to our GEP graduates!

 

We know that rabies elimination is heavily reliant upon education. Without disease education, rabies elimination is impossible. Education helps to prevent:

• unnecessary deaths by ensuring people seek treatment when bitten,
• rabies at its source by ensuring that dogs are vaccinated,
• animal bite wounds through bite prevention messages
• inhumane dog culling as an (incorrectly) perceived means to control rabies
• the reintroduction of rabies into rabies-free areas by ensuring that the correct procedures are followed.

Although we know how important rabies education is to the elimination of the disease, we tend to forget that the best messages and education materials need to reach the right people. That is where you, the GARC Education Platform (GEP) course graduates have been instrumental in helping to save lives. More than 7,000 of you have completed the Rabies Educator Certificate (REC) course, and with your dedication and efforts, we estimate that this life-saving information has reached 5,65 million people!

Your efforts have made a huge impact on our work to eliminate rabies in more than 110 countries globally. From all of us at GARC, we would like to say a big “Thank you” to everyone for not only using our courses and taking time to learn about rabies, but also for going out into your communities and educating others – all in an effort to prevent suffering and loss of both human and animal lives.

 

If you are interested in signing up for the other GEP courses, or haven't yet completed the REC course, learn more here.

 

Article contributed by the GARC team