Lifebuoy soap to the rescue

Championing safe hands

One of our oldest brands, Lifebuoy, is behind a massive, sustained direct contact health education programme aiming to raise hygiene standards in Sri Lanka. Lifebuoy is seeking to drive home the message that washing your hands with a good germ-kill soap after defecation, before eating and before feeding children, can make a material difference in helping to prevent the spread of preventable infectious diseases such as diarrhoea and upper respiratory infections.

According to the World Health Organisation, diarrhoea is the largest single cause of preventable death, killing 2.2 million people every year. In 2003, it killed 600 000 children aged under five in India alone. It's been estimated that if everyone washed their hands properly at key times during the day, up to half of all childhood deaths from diarrhoea - one million children - could be avoided.

Clean hands

At first thought, influencing more people to wash their hands and brush their teeth may not seem like much, but in fact the potential for improving health and actually saving lives is tremendous. Simple changes to everyday habits, like washing hands with soap and water before touching food and after going to the toilet, can halve the risk of contracting diarrhoeal diseases that claim the lives of over 3.5 million children each year, globally.

Through the Lifebuoy health and hygiene awareness programmes that we have been conducting in schools since  002, we have been able to spread our message of cleanliness to more than 250,000 students in 750 schools. The first series of programmes, known as Suwa Sirith Meheya were designed to educate children about basic health and hygiene habits, create awareness of how effective simple habits like washing of hands with soap can help in preventing the spread of diseases, and help parents to encourage these habits in their children.

In 2006, we launched a new programme we called Ignite the HeroWithin, which attempts to create awareness in a fun, appealing way, with ‘Germ Fighter Clubs’ set up in schools, so that the kids themselves get involved in promoting good hygiene.

The first ever Global Handwashing Day - an initiative led by The World Bank, UNICEF, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, USAID and Unilever was held on 18 October 2008. Unilever Sri Lanka celebrated this special day by collaborating with the Ministries of Health and Education and UNICEF and managed to get one million school children involved in activities like making a pledge to lead a healthier life and, of course, washing their hands with soap and water.