Educating for Health: How Video is Changing the Classroom Experience in Rural Schools

Every child deserves a safe, healthy learning environment. But in too many schools around the world, students lack access to the most basic hygiene services—putting their health, education, and futures at risk.

At illuminAid, we believe that change begins with education—and education is most powerful when it’s locally driven. That’s why we’re working with communities to equip teachers, students, and education leaders with the tools to create their own video-based learning materials that spark real, lasting change.

In northern Togo, our collaboration with Catholic Relief Services (CRS) brought together local educators, school officials, and health workers to produce community-made videos on hygiene and classroom management. These weren’t outside experts giving one-time lectures. These were teachers, parents, and students writing scripts, filming scenes, and sharing messages that reflect their culture, their language, and their reality.

Through our four-day Video Education Workshop, participants learned how to write, act in, and edit videos—using equipment and solar-powered kits that allow continued use even in areas with no electricity. The videos they created—one focused on classroom management, the other on proper handwashing techniques—are now being shown in schools and communities across the region.

This matters. Because the need is staggering:

According to UNICEF, 818 million children worldwide lack basic hand washing facilities at school.

462 million of them have no hygiene services at all.

These gaps lead to preventable illness, missed school days, and compromised learning outcomes.

By empowering communities to create educational content from within, we’re not just providing information—we’re helping build systems of self-reliance. Teachers reported that students were highly engaged by the videos and that the familiar voices, faces, and locations made the messages more credible and impactful. Even when screenings sparked lively audience participation, educators saw these moments as powerful opportunities for deeper learning and discussion.

This approach works because it respects and elevates local knowledge.

It also points to a scalable, cost-effective solution for education systems struggling with limited resources. With solar-powered video kits and basic training, any school, no matter how remote, can become a center for health education and positive behavior change.

But we need your help to take this further.

With your support, we can:

• Equip more schools with solar-powered video kits

• Train more educators in video production and health messaging

• Expand access to culturally relevant learning materials for students in need

• Support long-term monitoring to track behavior change and improve outcomes

Education doesn’t stop at books and blackboards. It’s about equipping students with the knowledge and habits that shape a healthier future.

Join us in bringing health education to the classroom—one video, one school, one community at a time.

[Donate today] and help us give children the tools to thrive—in health, in school, and in life.