Wash your Hands!

You reach out

and push down

on the pump

of the hand sanitiser... 

you squirt the sanitiser

onto your palm

and rub your palms

and fingers clean. 

And then, you touch something 

and start

the whole

process over 

again and again

until your hands are rough and dry

and you are bordering

on developing an

obsessive compulsive problem.

That was life

while my nephew was in hospital... 

 

So, when I noticed that it was

Global Handwashing Day

(15^th October)

I knew I had to blog about it!

This day was originally created

for schools and kids 

in order to develop the

habitat of correctly washing hands...

... with soap.

This is a big day!

It’s celebrated in over 100 countries

By over 200 million people.

(That’s a lot of clean hands!)

The biggest argument they have

for washing hands with soap

is to fight diarrheal

and respiratory infections.

 (I’m on board after

hearing the diarrhoea word!)

Living in Australia,

we have it pretty easy.

But these infections kill

millions of children

in developing countries.

Annually!

Sadly, washing hands with soap

could have saved the children.

Hand washing in these countries

rarely happens.

If everyone washed their hands

before they ate

and after they went to the toilet,

we could prevent more deaths

than any vaccine.

It seems so easy!

 

Global Handwashing Day

focuses on the kids of the world

because they are the biggest victims

of illness and because, being young,

they are most easily taught new tricks. 

If children,

especially in developing countries,

can be taught to wash their hands

– with soap

 – regularly and carefully,

they could change the handwashing

behaviours of whole communities.

We could win the battle

against the germs!

 

So, could I put this into practice at school?

Could I let 29

ten and eleven year olds

 play around at the sink...

squirting soap and playing with water...

 washing their hands before they eat?

I see sooo many potential problems! 

sigh....

I’ll give it a go...