Saltus Year 6 puppeteers Kneiko Brimmer, Liam Page and Neil Figureido performed a puppet show about asthma for their peers.

The puppet show, on November 19, was the second one produced as part of the Department of Health and Open Airways collaborative efforts in asthma education. Jennifer Wilson, affectionately known as “Nurse Jen,” is the Department of Health’s Community Health Nurse for Asthma Education, and she came up with the idea of a puppet show for primary school assemblies.

The asthma presentations are an annual event, Nurse Jen explained: “And I always try to think of something new. I like the book ‘Once upon a Breath’, and decided to do a show based on it.”

“Nurse Jen” based the script for her puppet show on the plot from “Once Upon a Breath” by Aaron Zevy (published by Glaxo, a drug company which manufactures asthma inhalers). “Once Upon a Breath” is the story of a wolf and three pigs: the wolf is a big, bad, jazz-loving, saxophone-playing wolf with asthma.

“It’s a twist on the Three Little Pigs story,” “Nurse Jen” explained. “It’s funny, but it still gets the point across but I don’t want to give anything away.”

The three puppeteers were chosen by the school, and rehearsals were held with “Nurse Jen” during lunchtime in the week preceding the performance.

Of her young accomplices, “Nurse Jen” noted, “They were great. There were very animated. I enjoyed working with them.”

Veronica Mello designed and painted the colourful stand for the puppeteers, and the story unfolded to background music on a CD produced by Michael Spencer-Arscott for Open Airways.

“Mr. Spencer-Arscott did a great job on the sound,” “Nurse Jen” noted.

Head of Open Airways, Liz Boden remarked: “It is important to keep the children interested and also to keep reinforcing the simple message the goal is control no one need suffer with asthma. Asthma is treatable!”

Saltus school nurse, Lindsay Manderson, estimated that approximately one in three younger Saltus students and one in five older students require pumps for breathing issues at school.

The goal is to take this puppet show to every primary school before the end of the school year, and ultimately produce a film for television. Primary schools are invited to select three puppeteers to work with ‘Nurse Jen”. For more information, please contact nurse Jennifer Wilson at 332-8915 or jdwilson@gov.bm.