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About the Campaign
Sanitation and hygiene are essential to the public health and development. Every year millions of people suffer, and many die, from diseases associated with poor sanitation and hygiene. Children’s health and learning capacities are particularly affected. Concerted and continuous effort is necessary to promote sanitation and hygiene practices, especially handwashing with soap, among children.
An innovative ‘National Campaign for Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion with focus on Handwashing’ was launched on the first ever Global Handwashing Day celebrated on the 15th October 2008 to mobilize school children, and through them the community, for adoption of hygiene practices especially hand washing and use of toilets. The campaign was successful in reaching over 8 crore school children across India last year.
The campaign is being jointly promoted by Department of Drinking Water Supply (DDWS), and Department of School Education and Literacy (DSE&L), Govt of India with support of UNICEF. It is being operationalised through the national flagships programme of Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan (SSA) and Mid-day Meal (MDM) of DSE&L, and Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) of DDWS.
In order to take forward the momentum created through the campaign, the Handwashing Day celebrated every year in India will aim to promote sanitation and hygiene with a special focus on handwashing. Accordingly, this year the Handwashing Day will be celebrated across all the states in India on the 27th October as the Global Handwashing Day falls between the Diwali break of schools.
Objectives of the Campaign
• Creating awareness on sanitation and strengthen the initiatives to eliminate open defecation from India
• Promoting hygiene practice (e.g. toilet use, hand washing, personal hygiene, and community environmental cleanliness) which is very poor
• Focusing on hand washing at critical times especially after defecation and before eating
• Involving students and teachers and make them learn about the sanitation and hygiene issues especially hand washing practices
• Engaging them in mobilizing and creating awareness among their school, family and community sanitation and hygiene
• Energizing the grassroots implementer of TSC, SSA, MDM to focus on sanitation and hygiene especially hand washing
Campaign Activities
The activities of the campaign will be initiated on the 27th October 2009 which will also mark the Handwashing Day in India this year. On 27th October 2009, all the children assemble in the school with the teachers, SMC members and Mid-Day Meal cooks to ¬ participate in the planned activities. They are:
1. Create a child cabinet and organize a special meeting of the child cabinet to plan hygiene activities for the school year
2. Clean the class room and school compound
3. Together, wash hands with soap following the five steps before the mid-day meal
4. Administer a pledge to stop open defecation, and to practice handwashing with soap before eating and after defecation.
5. Participate in a march in the village to generate awareness on handwashing with soap and the use of toilets
Importance of Hand Washing
In India, about one-fourth of deaths among children (age 5-14 years) can be prevented by adoption of handwashing behaviours. An analysis of the causes of death among children (ages 5-14) has revealed that about 27% of the deaths are due to diarrhoea (17%) and respiratory infections (10%). Handwashing with soap stops the transmission of disease agents and can reduce diarrhoea, respiratory, skin, eye and worm infections. A recent study suggests that handwashing with soap, particularly after contact with excreta, can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by over 40% and respiratory infections by 30%.
Schools are a good place to learn the behaviour of handwashing with soap before eating. Mid-Day Meal (MDM) is served to nearly 120 million children in 1.12 million primary and middle schools in the country. MDM provides an excellent opportunity to influence hygiene practices of children, particularly hand washing with soap. These practices, once learnt at school, can be inculcated into the household practice of handwashing before eating. In a study carried out in a sample of the schools where mid-day meal is served shows that about 42% children are aware about the need for handwashing with soap while only 12% of the schools have soap available.
Recognizing the importance, 15th October has been fixed as the Global Handwashing Day by the global international agencies to bring the focus on hand washing with soap and mobilize millions of people across five continents to wash their hands with soap. The main objective of it is to reduce the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases in poor communities by promoting hand washing with soap.
Campaign’s Reach
The handwashing day to be celebrated on the 27th October this year will effectively bring spotlight on sanitation and hygiene especially handwashing by mobilizing millions of people across India. It is expected that all the primary and upper primary schools of all the States and Union Territories will be reached through this campaign by covering which will 10 crore students, 10 lakh schools and teachers, 2.5 lakh GPs, 6000 blocks, and 600 districts.
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