Editorial
Hand Washing Day, a brilliant idea
Let it not be confined to a day only
SOMETIMES a simple event can have a ground breaking significance. In this category belongs the news of 15 million children in 75,000 schools in Bangladesh washing their hands to mark the first-ever Global Hand Washing Day launched by the Unicef. Children are most vulnerable to pollution; besides, a good habit formed at a tender, impressionable age, can be an enduring acquisition for life.
This year's theme 'clean hands save lives' is very apt. Though not usually realised, hands are about the most exposed and thus unclean parts of the body. These are filled with invisible bacteria, and unless cleansed properly before eating, they do pose grave risk to our health, especially in our context of increasing environmental pollution, both surface and air. Actually, the casual manner in which many people throughout the world wipe their hands, would make out a case for a vigorous cross-country hygienic sensitisation drive.
The risk is higher among the children because their immunities are in a very fledging state.
Merely soaking hands with water is no good; it may even leave them soiled. There are standard hand washing techniques which the children must be able to learn and practise under the wings of their parents and teachers. The whole community needs to be galvanised behind a campaign launched for improved hygiene and sanitation practices in the country.
No doubt, the hand washing lessons taken by school goers throughout the country made for a spectacular event. But it would be nothing more than a one- off, quickly forgotten ritual unless it is sustained through programmatic efforts made by the school boards, relevant NGOs and local community leaderships.
The education and health ministries could make it a common cause of providing whatever little logistical support is needed to popularise hand washing across the country. The media, both electronic and print, should be utilised in advancing such a benign cause.
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