October 18, 2016 By Hassan Gbassay Koroma
A trio of ministries – Health and Sanitation, Education and Water Resources – in partnership with Social Organisational Society (SOS), UNICEF, World Health Organisation, DFID, Water Aid, and the Freetown WASH Consortium on Saturday, 15th October joined the rest of the world to celebrate Handwashing Day.
The celebration started with a float parade at Aberdeen Road Junction through Wilkinson Road to the SOS Children’s Village in Lumley, with the participation of pupils from various primary and secondary schools in Freetown and several other organisations, who raised awareness about handwashing as a key approach to disease prevention.
Addressing pupils on this year’s theme, ‘Making Handwashing a Habit’, head of Freetown WASH Consortium, Thynn Thynn said handwashing was very important because it helps to prevent diseases such as diarrhea and acute respiratory infections.
She said statistics has shown that diarrhea is the second largest killer disease among children in the world and that the day was not only set aside to be celebrated but to also raise awareness and inform the public about the measures to prevent such diseases in their communities.
Head of Communications and Advocacy at Water Aid, Aruna Augustine Kamara said his organisation had launched a new campaign for health professionals and line ministries, thus calling on them to take actions for the improvements of water, sanitation and hygiene in healthcare facilities in the country.
He said some 38 percent of hospitals and clinics in low and middle-income countries around the world, including Sierra Leone, do not have regular access to water and lacked basic toilets facilities.
He said the situation puts parents and healthcare workers at an unacceptable risk of infection, adding that one in every five deaths of newborn babies in developing countries were caused by infections, with a strong link to dirty water, poor sanitation and unhygienic conditions.
Director of SOS Children’s Village, Prince Cummings, said the day was about raising awareness about handwashing and disclosed that they have about 4,000 children under their care, noting that the campaign was focused more on children.
She called on other organisations to come to the aid of SOS and help them build brighter future for the children that are under their care.
Also speaking, UNICEFF Country Representative, Geoffrey Wiffin said handwashing should be taken very seriously by Sierra Leoneans because it greatly helped during the fight against the Ebola virus in 2014.
He said UNICEFF was working to provide water to over 500 schools in the provinces, which he believed would help greatly for children to be practicing and getting used to handwashing.
Representative from the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, Doris Bah, said the Global Handwashing Day was initiated at the Annual World Water Week held in Stockholm from August 17 to 23, 2008, adding that the scheme was initiated by the Public Private Partnership.
She said the first Global Handwashing Day took place on October 15, 2008, the date set aside by the UN General Assembly as the International Year of Sanitation.
She said October 15th marked the annual Global Handwashing Day and is aimed at increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent diseases.
She further pointed out that building on a hugely successful inaugural Global Handwashing Day in 2008 – in which over 120 million children around the world washed their hands with soap in more than 70 countries – it was anticipated this year that millions of children across five continents would celebrate the day.
She said the campaign was initiated to reduce childhood mortality related respiratory and diarrheal diseases by introducing simple behavioural change-hand washing with soap.
Quoting research, she said the practice helps reduced the rate of morality by almost 50 per cent
Giving her keynote address, Minister of Social Welfare Gender and Children’s Affairs, Dr. Sylvia Bylden said over 200 million people were raising awareness all over the world on the importance of hand washing and how it helps to save lives.