UNICEF: Mali celebrates Global Handwashing Day

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/mali_51551.html

BAMAKO, Mali, 26 October 2009 For the country of Mali, Global Handwashing Day holds special significance. About one in five children in Mali dies before the age of five and approximately half of these deaths are caused by hygiene-related preventable diseases.

Washing hands can reduce the occurance of these diseases by over 40 per cent.

In Bamako, thousands of children were given the day off from school to gather in Modibo Keita Stadium and participate in the following challenge: breaking a record for the number of children washing their hands simultaneously. The record was previously owned by Bangladesh, where 1,200 children washed their hands at the same time.

UNICEF invited 10,000 children and provided them with water bowls and soap. Throughout the day, children from all the schools of Bamako and surrounding areas boarded buses that drove through the busy traffic to drop them at the stadium.

Its not only a big party, it has to become a habit that everyone reproduces at home, said UNICEF Representative in Mali Marcel Rudasingwa. We have to influence a global change in the behaviors in Mali.

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Tags:

• UNICEF
• Mali
• Global
• Handwashing
• Day
• Bamako
• water
• sanitation
• hygiene