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Lifebuoy Leads Pledge To Help Children Reach Their Fifth Birthday
Lifebuoy Leads Pledge To Help Children Reach Their Fifth Birthday
birthday
15102012
15102012 : Campaign to promote handwashing among children to celebrate Global
Handwashing Day.
Mumbai, 15 October 2012 – Nitin Paranjpe, CEO & MD, Hindustan
Unilever Limited and noted film actress Kajol led a countrywide Related Links
hand hygiene awareness campaign today in Mumbai to celebrate
the Global Handwashing Day (GHD). They spoke to children about
Lifebuoy on Facebook
the need for washing hands with soap on key occasions during the (http://www.facebook.com/lifebuoy)
day. Dr. Nirupam Bajpai, Director of the Columbia Global Centers,
South Asia, and a Senior Development Advisor at the Earth Institute
at Columbia University was present on the occasion.
Representatives of Unicef, Save the Children and PSI (Population Services International) were also present.
“All stakeholders, including the public, have a role to play in helping spread the handwashing message. Lifebuoy
is asking the people of India to support the cause by pledging to ‘help a child reach their fifth birthday’ through
handwashing with soap. For every pledge, we will teach the lifesaving habit to one more child through our
handwashing behaviour change programmes,” said Nitin Paranjpe, CEO & Managing Director, HUL.
Diarrhoea and pneumonia are the two leading killers of children, accounting for 29% of under 5 deaths globally –
claiming more than two million lives each year (estimates 2.001 million). In India, this translates to the loss of
609,000 children under the age of five, every year.
While most households do have access to soap, the number of people who regularly wash their hands at the
right times – such as before eating and after using the toilet – is worryingly low. Across a global review of 11
countries, the average rate of handwashing after using the toilet is only 17% and this dips as low as 3% in Ghana
and 1% in rural India.
Over the past two years, Lifebuoy has successfully changed the handwashing behaviour of 48 million people
worldwide – towards its goal to reach one billion people by 2015. In India alone, Lifebuoy has reached nearly 30
million people over 2010 and 2011. Lifebuoy aims to bring Global Handwashing Day to a wider audience and
influence government policy, to make hygiene behaviour change education part of every school curricula.
Pledges can be made at Lifebuoy’s Facebook page Facebook.com/Lifebuoy. See the Facebook page for more
details.
For more information, interviews or images, please contact Email: mediacentre.hul@unilever.com. Telephone:
Prasad Pradhan 022 39832429, R Ram 022 39832413.
About Lifebuoy
Lifebuoy is India’s largest selling soap brand (by volume) from Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL). It has been
synonymous with health and hygiene since it first landed on Indian shores in 1895 at Bombay harbour. It has
been spreading the message of health and hygiene for the last 100 years, and over two thirds of India’s
households use Lifebuoy at least once a year. The famous Lifebuoy jingle “Tandurusti ki raksha karta hai
Lifebuoy, Lifebuoy hai jahan tandurusti hai wahan” is the health anthem of India.
Lifebuoy lives its vision “Making a billion Indians feel safe and secure by meeting all their health and hygiene
needs.” Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna is the single largest rural health and hygiene educational programme ever
undertaken in India. Its objective is to educate people about basic hygienic habits, including washing hands with
soap. In the year 2006, the Indian Postal Department released a special Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna Postal Cover
in recognition of Lifebuoy’s efforts to promote health and hygiene awareness in India.
Unilever, through its Lifebuoy brand, cofounded Global Handwashing Day in 2008 with the Public Private
Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW) alongside UNICEF, P&G, USAID, the Work Bank Water and
Sanitation Programme, US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Academy for Educational
Development.
2. UNICEF, June 2012: Pneumonia and diarrhoea Tackling the deadliest diseases for the world’s poorest
children
3. CHERG 2010. Sandy Cairncross, Caroline Hunt, Sophie Boisson, Kristof Bostoen, Val Curtis, Isaac CH
Fung, and WolfPeter Schmidt Water, sanitation and hygiene for the prevention of diarrhoea.Int. J.
Epidemiol. 2010 39: i193i205.
4. Rabie, T and Curtis, V. (2006): Handwashing and risk of respiratory infections: a quantitative systematic
review. Tropical Medicine and International Health, 11(3), 258267.
5. Cairncross, S. Valdmanis V. 2006. Water supply, sanitation and hygiene promotion. Chapter 41. In. Disease
Control Priorities in Developing Countries. Second Edition. Edt. Jameson et al 2006. The World Bank.
Washington DC: National Institutes of Health.
6. vi) Valerie A. Curtis, Lisa O. Danquah and Robert V. Aunger (2009); Planned, motivated and habitual
hygiene behaviour: An Eleven Country Review
India
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