Interactive, illustrated educational booklet to prevent dog bites and improve children's interactions with animals.
GARC/Netcare/WHO
GARC’s "Want a Friend? Be a Friend!" booklet was recently translated into Afrikaans, and approximately 6,000 copies were printed and distributed to school children by the Western Cape Veterinary Services office at education events in the South African province.
Our last newsletter issue featured a story about University of Pretoria vet students who used GARC’s Want a Friend? Be a Friend! booklet while participating in the community engagement portion of their training. The students traveled to local primary schools and taught students how to prevent dog bites and how to prevent the spread of rabies in communities that are at a high risk for rabies exposure. Here, we return with three more stories from the vet students on how they used the Want a Friend educational booklets in the classroom.
In South Africa, the Rabies Educator Certificate (REC) has been integrated into the veterinary college curriculum at the University of Pretoria. This year, the vet students were asked to train primary school students on dog bite and rabies prevention. Here, we share three stories where the Want a Friend? Be a Friend! booklets were used to teach about the importance of taking good care of dogs and understanding how to behave safely around them.