By Priscilla N Nyamekye/ Gifty Amofa GNA
Accra, Oct. 17, GNA – To achieve the Sustainable Development Goal six bordering on clean water and sanitation, stakeholders must renew efforts and commitment through teaching with good practices, Madam Cynthia Morrison, Minister designate for Gender, Children and Social Protection has said.
This she said was incumbent on parents, schools, private sector, and international organisations to play their roles responsibly for its achievement.
Madam Morrison said this when Unilever Ghana Limited marked this year’s Global Hand Washing Day in Accra to promote hand washing with soap and water.
She commended Unilever for the Hi – Five handwashing project, saying, it would promote good health among the children and their effort would complement government’s move to attain the goal.
Madam Morrison said, the Theme; clean hands, a recipe for health cannot be over emphasised as good sanitation would result in good health among children – the future leaders and encouraged children to practise proper handwashing.
The Managing Director of Unilever, Yeo Ziobeieton highlighted on the importance of proper hand wash by saying that, teaching children the proper way of washing hands helped them to have a healthy and the best in life ».
« We are proud to be sourcing over 99 per cent of our packaging materials here in Ghana ». He also announced that some of their biggest brands; Omo, Pepsodent, and Sunlight would be produced in Ghana before the end of the year ».
He said, Unilever was on a mission to save lives and ensure that children in the country lived up to the age of five by teaching them the importance of washing hands with soap under running water at the five critical times.
The five critical times, Mr Ziobeieton explained were washing hands before breakfast, before lunch, before super, after visiting the toilet, and before bathing.
To attain these, he said Unilever introduced the school’s programme called ‘HI-5,’ where children were educated on the importance of hand washing and proper way of doing it.
Madam Barbara Ayisi the Deputy Minister of education, said the objectives of the programme was to develop a healthy population with the essential skills to serve as change agents in their homes, churches, mosques and communities and also to contribute efficiently to national development.
She said the School Health Education Promotion (SHEP) over the years had improved primary school attendance »we are happy to say that children in the schools had adopted positive hygiene behaviours which would definitely guide them for the rest of their lives ».
Henry Herbert Malm, the Corporate Affairs Manager of Unilever in an interview with the Ghana News Agency said » So we are emphasising the need for people to wash their hands and we say the five critical times during the day is one that we want everyone to imbue as a habit; before breakfast, before lunch, before super, after vising the washroom, and during the daily bath. »
Mr Malm advised everyone to wash their hands before they started bathing because the hands might end up in places where they could easily contaminate themselves.
« We have committed ourselves to improve and enhance the health and hygiene of a billion people across the globe and that was one of the campaigns, » he disclosed.
This year’s event branded by poetry concerts and plays, was to highlight the plea to improve hygienic practices in the avoidance of respiratory infections, Cholera, and Diarrhoea
The school children, teachers and their families who took part in the awareness formation event made a pledge to wash their hands with soap and water, while the children were also taken through proper ways of washing hands with soap and water.
GRB
