PRINCIPAL`S MESSAGE

WASHING YOUR HANDS

Imagine that 60 planes full of babies under five crash every single day. That's the number of children who never make it to their fifth birthday. 6.6 million children die before their fifth birthday.

Diarrhoea and pneumonia are among the top two killers of children under five. We can prevent these diseases with one of the world's oldest inventions: a cake of soap. Handwashing with soap can reduce infections like flu, diseases that cause blindness, cholera and even Ebola. Handwashing with soap keeps children in school. It stops babies from dying. Handwashing with soap is one of the best ways of saving children's lives. It can save over 600,000 children every year. That's the equivalent of stopping 10 jumbo jets full of babies and children from crashing every single day.

I think you need to get to know the person next to you. Why don't you just shake their hand? Please shake their hand. What if I told you that the person whose hand you just shook didn't wash their hands when they were coming out of the toilet? Pretty yucky, you would agree with me. Statistics tell us that four people out of five don't wash their hands when they come out of the toilet. Even when we've got running water and soap available, we still don’t wash our hands.

And we know most homes, even in poor countries, have a cake of soap. And the simple cake of soap is the most effective way we have of stopping disease, in rich countries and in poor.

You are unlikely to die from the horrible diseases that kill children in poorer countries but if handwashing was a daily habit, you wouldn’t get so many colds or stomach aches or sore throats or skin rashes. Washing your hands helps protect you from all kinds of infections.

We all need to make handwashing part of our daily lives and help more children throughout the world reach their fifth birthday. We can also help cut down the amount of illness in this school and in our own homes.

All with a simple cake of soap, the most beautiful invention in public health!

Acknowledgement: TED talk by Myriam Sidibe, public-health expert