The Africa Youth Growth Foundation (AYGF) in partnership with the U-SAVE Foundation, has sanitized the students of Government Day Secondary School, Bwari Area Council Council in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja on the importance of hand washing.
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The foundations also donated handwashing water dispensing buckets, towels, hand sanitizers, and hand wash to the school and demonstrated to the students to take hygiene seriously.

Executive-director of AYGF, Dr. Arome Salifu, while addressing the students, said that the aims is to mark this year’s Global Handwashing Day, with the theme: “Clean hands are within reach” with the students.

Salifu, who was represented by the Head of AYGF, Mr. Nelson Egbunu, said that the aims is to promote hand washing as a habit among people, especially children, and their caregivers, to make hand washing with soap a regular and lifelong habit and advocate for improved access to clean water and sanitation facilities, as these are essential components of effective hand hygiene.
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He noted that an estimated 14 million people, including children die each year from preventable diseases attributable to lack of poor hand washing.

He said: “It is estimated that 1.4 million people including nearly 400,000 children under five die each year from preventable diseases attributable to inadequate WASH including diarrhoea, Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs), soil-transmitted helminths, and undernutrition.

“Unsafe hand hygiene alone is responsible for 394,000 deaths from diarrhoea and 356,000 deaths from ARIs ‘WHO 2023’. In 2022, 3 out of 4 people had access to basic hygiene services; Monitoring handwashing behaviour is difficult, but the presence of soap and water at a designated place has been shown to be a robust proxy indicator.

“Household surveys increasingly include a handwashing module that involves direct observation of handwashing facilities. Since 2015 the population with access to basic hygiene services has increased by over 1 billion, from 5.0 billion ‘67%’ to 6 billion ‘75%’. However, 2 billion people still lacked basic services in 2022, including 653 million people with no hand washing facilities at all.
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“If current rates of progress continue the world will reach 85 percent coverage by 2030, leaving around 1.4 billion people without basic hygiene services. Achieving universal coverage by 2030 will require a threefold increase in current rates of progress globally.”

Also speaking, Admin and Finance Officer of U-Save Foundation, Chioma Odogwu, noted that event is an opportunity to raise awareness and advocate to improved hygiene infrastructure and policies.

Odogwu said: “The event is to establish this program today to promote and encourage good hand hygiene practices, To raise awareness about the critical role that handwashing with soap plays in preventing the spread of diseases, particularly diarrhea and respiratory infections.

“To promote handwashing as a habit among people, especially children, and their caregivers, to make handwashing with soap a regular and lifelong habit and advocate for improved access to clean water and sanitation facilities, as these are essential components of effective hand hygiene.

“Our activities range from engaging the students with interactive activities that will promote handwashing which include handwashing demonstrations, games, competitions, educational sessions; Develop informative and easy-to-understand educational content that explains the importance of handwashing, when and how to wash hands, and the benefits of proper hygiene.”
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