P&G Teaches Children Personal Hygiene on Hand Washing Day

Procter and Gamble (P&G) Nigeria, leading consumer goods manufacturing company, is promoting health and hygiene management, through its brand, Safeguard, among Nigerian children and has tasked Nigerians to imbibe good hygiene habits as a means of improving their health.

The company made the call at the workshop, organized for children from select secondary schools in Lagos by P&G and its partner, Save the Children International and other stakeholders, as part of the company’s activities to commemorate the 2014 Global Hand Washing Day (GHWD).

Temitope Iluyemi, P&G’s Director, Global Government Relations, Sub Sahara Africa, described hand washing as an efficient way to improve health among Nigerians.

According to her, “Medical research findings have shown direct correlation between hand washing and improvement of health around the globe. The simple act of washing hands with soap can reduce the incidence of communicable diseases like diarrhea among children by almost 50 per cent, and respiratory infections by nearly 25 percent.”

She informed that children suffer disproportionately from diarrheal diseases as statistics show that more than 3.5 million children under five die every year from diarrhea and pneumonia-related diseases.

During the event, Mrs Amaka Ifionu, School Health and Nutrition Adviser, Save the Children International expressed gratitude to P&G for creating a platform for the healthcare initiative targeted towards children.

"We are very grateful to P&G Nigeria for the partnership to mark GHWD in Nigeria. We also enjoy partnerships with P&G in other countries and we are particularly grateful that the Nigerian branch has bought into the same global partnership. We also look forward to more partnership with P&G to help sustain the awareness on the need to wash hands always,” she said.

Speaking at the donation at the Ministry of Education in Abeokuta, Ogun State Commissioner of Education, Science and Technology, Barrister Segun Odubela, commended P&G for the donation saying that it was timely.

“The donation of 500 cases of Safeguard Soap by P&G on the Global Hand washing Day is very apt and timely and will go a long way in assisting schools in the state to combat the spread of communicable diseases, especially as the State government has had to postpone school resumption in the state twice because of the threat of communicable diseases,” He said.

The Global Hand Washing Day (GWHD) is a campaign dedicated to raising awareness of hand washing with soap as a key approach to disease prevention. The event, which comes up on October 15 every year, also aims at motivating and mobilizing millions around the world to wash their hands with soap regularly.