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Global Hand washing Day is an international hand washing promotion campaign to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their hand washing habits.
In 2008, Global Handwashing Day was celebrated for the first time.
Each year in October, many organisations and government institutions across the globe observe this day to remind people of the importance of hand hygiene to health.
Washing hands is one of the important things one can do to prevent among other diseases, food poisoning, cholera, and others.
In this year, the theme was “Clean Hands are Within Reach.”
In Nairobi, a US-based nongovernmental organisation with offices in Nairobi, Healthcare Extension Promotion and Training Organization (HEPTO) teamed up with Stoni Athi Rotary Club and Acanova to sensitise school children in Kinanie on the significance of handwashing and body hygiene in general.
“Washing hands is critical both during the day, and washing with soap is absolutely important,” said Florence Lintari, the Hepto team leader in Nairobi.
Read Also:Machakos Rural Village Benefits in Diagnosis and Treatment By Hepto
Hepto this week donated sanitary towels to girls in some primary schools in Kinanie, Machakos County to promote good hygiene and offer education on reproductive health.
” Our partnership with Stoni Athi Rotary club was a beginning for a long-term program to help the vulnerable groups in our community,” Mrs Lintari said.
Provision of sanitary towels help keep young girls in school and reduce poverty cycle by that is brought about by dropping out of girls from schools.
Hepto has in the past conducted free medical camps in Kenya, specifically in Machakos, Isiolo, Meru, and Kilifi counties targeting poor households who can not afford medical services.
In June this year, the organisation donated foodstuffs to residents of Kalama in Machakos County.
” Hepto works with the national government and county governments to identify needy persons, especially those ailing, and people with disabilities to help reduce their burden,” Lintari said.
“We used the global hand-washing day to educate school children on general body hygiene, including menstrual hygiene for adolescent girls in the schools that we visited.”
The organisation which is making a strong presence in Kenya, as a beacon of hope for persons struggling to gain medicare, has recently spread wings to Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and the Somaliland to enhance and increase treatment and knowledge of healthcare to health workers and the general public in those countries.