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A day to promote hygiene in RI
Emmy Fitri , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Sun, 10/12/2008 9:48 AM | Lifestyle
Thousands of school children across the Indonesian archipelago will join hands with children from around the world during the first ever Global Handwashing Day on Oct. 15.
The UN-launched event is aimed at raising awareness on the need for sanitation among the poor.
Washing one's hands, a small, but often overlooked practice, is being touted as a potential cure for many diseases suffered by poor people in the world.
Quoting a 2008 World Bank data, physician Handrawan Nadesul said Indonesia suffered US$6 billion in losses per year due to poor sanitation.
"There are also deaths caused by preventable diseases. Access to sound sanitation and hygienic practices remains a luxury for many Indonesians. The data also shows that more than one fourth of the country's 220 million people still defecate in open areas, such as rivers," he said recently.
Handrawan also revealed that Indonesia still had a "high" incidence of preventable diarrhea. The Health Ministry states that out of every 1,000 people, 300 suffer from diarrhea every year.
"Diarrhea is still the number one killer of under-five-year-olds and number five for all ages."
The economic growth the country has enjoyed over the last few years has not brought with it increased awareness of hygiene and sanitation.
"One particular preventable disease, diarrhea, is closely related to individual sanitation, hygienic practices and, more importantly, healthy lifestyle," he said.
Handrawan said the community must play an active role in preventing loss of life an financial losses by improving sanitation.
"In the meantime, we are busy combating old diseases like malaria, filaria elephantiasis, TB and also the newly emerging bird flu. Those diseases too can actually be prevented through clean sanitation and a hygienic lifestyle," Handrawan said.
Citing a variety of health problems faced by the country, and the inadequacy of the health budget to deal with them, Handrawan said empowering communities with basic knowledge was the best approach.
"It's part of the primary health care issue that must be addressed by the government and decision makers," he said.
People in the country are not accustomed to washing their hands with soap, he said, adding that canvassing school children was the most effective approach to quickly raising hygiene awareness in Indonesia.
"Children taking the first step as part of the global behavior-change movement is like unlocking a closed door to the community," he said during a media workshop organized by Lifebuoy, a disinfectant soap producer under Unilever, which this year marks the 60th year of its presence in Indonesia.
As an example, Handrawan cited the case of 16-year-old Doly Akter, the leader of an adolescent girls' hygiene monitoring group in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The story is told in The Last Taboo, a novel written by Maggie Black and Ben Fawcett and published by United Nations for Children Funds.
"This group of girls not only encouraged schools to convert to toilets but also managed to transform slum areas where they lived in Dhaka," the book says.
Akter and her friends went knocking on doors in their neighborhoods to ask residents whether they washed their hands after defecating and before eating, and whether they used toilets or kept them clean.
Black and Fawcett write, "When children come calling to talk openly and seriously about such things as 'zero tolerance for open defecation' their elders -- whatever they think -- cannot easily brush them aside; they too start to put aside their inhibitions."
The Oct. 15 hand-washing movement is expected to encourage children to do the same, to knock on doors, spread awareness of hygiene and to become champions of a better, cleaner and healthier lifestyle by simply learning how to best brush bacteria and dirt from their hands.
