Is there any connection between good health and doing well at school? Guest blog by Ngoc

A question for you:“Is there any connection between good health and doing well at school?” What is your answer? I think, most people will answer in the affirmative, that there is a close connection between good health and doing well at school.

Let me tell you a story about a CEF girl, and the effect of good health on her education.

 

CEF has been providing educational support for a poor girl in Dien Ban whose father died from a heart attack. She now just lives with her mother and two older brothers who are of school age and her mother cannot easily support them all. It resulted in this CEF student being malnourished, in poor health, and missing many classes, and naturally her results gradually suffered.

After talking with her mother on one of the home visits, we found out the reasons for her poor attendance and results, so we decided to provide some food support. However, her health did not improve much and we were confused about this. Then we decided to continue with the food support but also give her some multi-vitamins and minerals, but suggested she just take a small dosage every other day. We were surprised that when we did the last home visit we could see she was a little bit fatter, stronger and happier. Thanks to her improved health, and more regular school attendance, her results have improved. She has also received many compliments from her main teacher about the improvement in her results.

From this experience I realized that health has a big influence on education. A student cannot be a good student unless they study hard. However, it is not possible to be an excellent student if their health is not good. Therefore, CEF sometimes provides vitamins and minerals for our children so they can have better health enabling them to work hard and be able to improve their education standard.