GLOBAL HEALTH & DEVELOPMENT

editor's note

Chutes & Ladders is not my favorite board game. Since no skill is required, I find it a bit dull. And when I play with my dear darling grandchildren they cheat all the time. They do roll the die over and over until they get a number they want. I don't think they always follow the rules that if you hit a chute, you have to go backward!

But I was delighted by a different version of this venerable game called Schisto & Ladders. "Schisto" is a shortening of the tropical disease schistosomiasis, spread by contact with parasitic water-dwelling worms that can infect humans, bringing on symptoms like blood in the urine, fever and rash. If untreated, the disease can cause organ and neurological damage, infertility, even bladder cancer.

In this game, you don't slide down chutes, you slide down ... worms. Um ... yuck.

But let's get serious: This game instructs kids on what causes the disease, how to prevent it and how it can be treated. Freelance contributor William McCarthy visited a classroom in Nigeria where kids gleefully played the game and couldn't help but learn in the process. And that's true to the DNA of Chutes & Ladders. It originated in India as a way to teach moral lessons (which is kind of ironic given the way my grandkids flout the rules!).

Read the story here.

Marc Silver,
Editor, global health