This year marks the fifth an­niver­sary of Glob­al Hand-wash­ing Day (GHD) in T&T and around the world-a day co-found­ed by Unilever's health soap brand Lifebuoy to raise aware­ness of hand-wash­ing with soap as a sim­ple but life­sav­ing habit.

To mark the day in T&T, Unilever has or­gan­ised a se­ries of ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing an ed­u­ca­tion­al and in­ter­ac­tive school vis­it pro­gramme na­tion­wide, to teach chil­dren the im­por­tance of wash­ing their hands with soap to pro­tect them­selves against germs and dis­eases.

A re­lease from Unilever said vol­un­teers from the com­pa­ny will take time off to demon­strate prop­er hand-wash­ing tech­niques to al­most 6,000 stu­dents in 16 schools. The com­pa­ny will al­so fa­cil­i­tate a germ-fight­er draw­ing com­pe­ti­tion for chil­dren ages five-12 to re­in­force the hand-wash­ing mes­sage.

"Hand-wash­ing with soap is one of the most ef­fec­tive and low-cost ways to pre­vent dis­eases like pneu­mo­nia and di­ar­rhoea, which stop 2.1 mil­lion chil­dren every year reach­ing their fifth birth­day. We know from clin­i­cal re­search that hand-wash­ing with soap at key oc­ca­sions can re­duce the risk of di­ar­rhoea by up to ap­prox­i­mate­ly 45 per cent," said Unilever's mar­ket­ing man­ag­er Shelly-Ann Si­mon.

"Every­one, even the pub­lic has a role to play in help­ing spread the hand-wash­ing mes­sage. Lifebuoy is ask­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to sup­port the cause by pledg­ing to 'help a child reach their fifth birth­day'. We are es­pe­cial­ly en­cour­ag­ing par­ents to make the pledge with their chil­dren to wash their hands with soap at the five key times a day: af­ter us­ing bath­room, at bath­time and be­fore break­fast, lunch and din­ner. By mak­ing this com­mit­ment, the risk of res­pi­ra­to­ry in­fec­tions and di­ar­rhoea can be re­duced dra­mat­i­cal­ly, es­pe­cial­ly in chil­dren un­der the age of five," said man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Tim Klein­nebenne.

Pledges can be made at Lifebuoy's Face­book page Face­book.com/Lifebuoy.