How to explain to 5-year-old children what to do in case of emergency, how to heal a wound or how to identify the bones and organs of the human body? This has been the challenge faced by Irati Valencia and Marta Belmonte, 4th year nursing students at the University of Navarra. The two, intern students of department of Community and Maternal and Child Nursing, have led a health promotion activity promoted by the classroom Healthy of the School Nursing, and in which professors Maider Belintxon and Marta Vidaurreta have also collaborated. More than 100 boys and girls from the 3rd year of kindergarten at high school Irabia-Izaga participated in the activity.

"We wanted to teach the children basic concepts and make them aware of aspects related to their health," explains Irati, who is also a student at Diploma in Leadership, research and teaching (LID). "We decided to carry out three workshops, we were trained in pediatric CPR concepts and we trained the rest of the students who were going to work with the children".

The workshops were held at the Simulation Center of the School Nursing Center. There, divided into small groups, the children were able to get to know the basic contents of a first aid kit and learned how to perform simple cures. "The children had a lot of fun using nursing instruments. They made a swab with gauze, dipped it in betadine to cure simulated wounds, put band-aids...", recalls Irati.

In another workshop, the children learned about the functionality of bones and organs through drawings that they had to identify and place on a silhouette of the human body. Finally, the children received a basic CPR workshop. The students, through songs and together with stuffed animals, showed the children the emergency situations they could face and how they should solve them: choking on a candy, a status of unconsciousness... "Through the song they know how to deal with these possible common and usual emergency situations, and learn how to handle them in the best possible way: calling 112 and asking an adult for financial aid ", explains Irati.

"The experience has been very positive. Everything went very well. The little ones have collaborated a lot and have learned. I think the basic concepts have been clear to them," says Teresa Saura, a 3rd grade student and one of the students who participated in the activity. "Being such young children, we had to take care of the smallest detail," she explains. "We had to adapt the times of each activity to the different rhythms and skills of each child. That's also why each student was always looking out for two of them. And everything had to be very dynamic to capture their attention; and very manipulative, which is how children learn best," says teacher Belintxon.

For Irati Valencia, the activity has helped her to see how difficult it is sometimes to transmit all the health knowledge they learn during the degree program, especially to children. "It is very important to adapt your language and the workshops to their cognitive level. It is not easy to transfer aspects related to their own health, adapting the language to their level of development", he concludes.

This is the second time this activity is carried out during this school year. In November, primary school students from high school San Cernin participated in the same workshops.