[Fighting cholera in shanty-town. Successful experience of a Quebec project adapted to Peru]

Originally designed in Quebec, the MOI project was a collaboration between two professors of social work from Quebec and two members of the Peruvian NGO called SUR in Villa de Salvador, one of poorest slum areas on the outskirts of Lima. The approach is founded on the notion that the body is the primary instrument through which a person can interact with the world around him or her, and that the physical and mental health of an individual exists within the context of healthy conditions of life that must include at least a basic social and health infrastructure as well as healthy hygiene practices on the part of individuals, families and the local community. Preschool children (ages 4-6), study a different part of the body and its proper care each week through classroom observation games. Parents' help is requested to modify unhealthy conditions, at the same time to enrich the children's experience and to mobilize the community to improve health conditions. During the 1991 cholera epidemic, not a single case was counted in the experimental district, despite its clearly socio-economically impoverished status, and despite the fact that the Ministry of Health recorded 86,650 cases in the Lima-Callao district, accounting for about 40% of the total number of cases in the Peru. The prior work made it easier to explain how cholera is spread and what special new measures needed to be taken in addition to the hygiene habits already taught.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)