India has the highest number of deaths among children below the age of five. Most often they succumb to illnesses like pneumonia and diarrhoea. One way to protect yourself is to wash your hands with soap. While there are a number of initiatives to promote handwashing and preventing child deaths, we need to do more given the seriousness of the problem.
Save lives
Last month, Kajol Devgn, handwashing ambassador of “Help a Child Reach 5” campaign pledged her support to the campaign to promote the cause of handwashing with soap to eradicate preventable diseases like diarrhoea and pneumonia. The campaign to inculcate handwashing habits has begun in Thesgora, a village in Madhya Pradesh where one of the highest rates of diarrhoea in India has been recorded. The campaign hopes to go from village to village in South and Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Kajol attended the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) events to appeal to policymakers and governments to scale up handwashing with soap programmes to achieve development goals to reduce child mortality.
