KAJOL HANDWASHING AMBSASSADOR AND ADVOCATE FOR HELP A CHILD REACH 5 WILL ATTEND UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY (UNGA) WEEK IN NEW YORK

 

Kajol will petition for the cause of hand washing with soap on a global platform

 

Mumbai, Kajol Devgn, hand washing ambassador and advocate of Lifebuoy’s ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ campaign will attend the UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY (UNGA) events to appeal to policymakers and governments to scale up hand washing with soap programs to achieve development goals to reduce child mortality. Kajol will be at a series of UN events in New York from 23rd-25th September.

 India is the country with the highest number of deaths among children under 5 due to pneumonia and diarrhoea — with over 6 lakh deaths annually. Washing hands with soap is the most cost effective way to prevent child deaths and contribute to Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG4) towards reducing child mortality. While there are a number of initiatives to promote hand washing and preventing child deaths, we need to do more give the seriousness of the problem.

 

Last month Kajol pledged her support to the ‘Help a Child reach 5’ campaign to promote the cause of hand washing with soap which aims to eradicate preventable diseases like diarrhoea and pneumonia, the main causes of child mortality, one village at a time.

The campaign to inculcate hand washing habits has started in Thesgora, a village in Madhya Pradesh with one of the highest rates of diarrhoea in India .On the eve of her travel to the UNGA Kajol said, “I would like to take this opportunity to urge governments and the United Nations policymakers to recognize that hand washing with soap is the most cost-effective intervention to reduce child mortality. I am proud to support the ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ campaign. I believe that the private sector has a critical role to play in achieving our development goals and the lives of children worldwide.”

Kajol will be a part of high profile events including high level UN panel dinner, press breakfast with Unilever CEO Paul Polman. She will also speak at the Social Good Summit along with other distinguished speakers like Al Gore and Melinda Gates. She will meet key UN dignitaries, including India’s permanent representative to the UN to highlight the cause of hand washing.The United Nations General Assembly will bring together world leaders, key opinion formers and policy makers and focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)- the development goals to achieve by 2015.  At the UNGA, policymakers have an opportunity to look at how hand washing with soap can help us achieve MDG 4 target’s deadline of 2015, and in the post-2015 agenda.

 

Unilever will be taking Lifebuoy’s Help A Child Reach 5 campaign to New York City during United Nations General Assembly week. During these events, Lifebuoy hopes to highlight the role of hand washing with soap in helping more children reach 5 and achieving Millennium Development Goal 4, ensure hand washing policy is in place for the post-2015 agenda and lastly highlight the role of private sector partnerships, like those of Lifebuoy’s, in accelerating progress towards MDG4.

 

 

For more information

PR 24x7 Network Limited

Atul Malikram

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www.atulmalikram.in