Kajol joins Help A Child Reach 5 campaign to promote hand washing

Kajol joins Help A Child Reach 5 campaign to promote hand washing

Mumbai, August 2013 — World-famous film actor and mother,  Kajol has today urged people to join her in supporting the cause of hand washing with the Lifebuoy’s ‘Help A Child Reach 5’ campaign which aims to eradicate diarrhoea, one village at a time. The campaign has adopted Thesgora, a village in Madhya Pradesh with one of the highest rates of diarrhoea to inculcate hand washing habits.

To help more children reach the age of 5, Kajol is urging people to donate to hand washing programmes. The donations can be made online at u-tube and the proceeds from the donations will go to Population Services International (PSI), a leading health organization for implementing hand washing programmes.

For every donation made, Lifebuoy will match the donation amount for its hand washing programmes. Lifebuoy will also donate 1 rupee to hand washing programmes every time the ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ video is shared online.

The campaign was launched with the release of a film of Kajol speaking about the importance of hand washing to prevent child deaths and urging people to donate to the cause and share Lifebuoy’s award-winning ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ video.

Kajol said, “As a mother, I was moved to tears while watching the film. It is simply not acceptable that a child dies from preventable diseases. I am proud to be supporting Lifebuoy’s ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ campaign. I would urge everyone to donate to the cause of spreading hand washing awareness. The simple act of hand washing can save the lives of so many children.”

Worldwide, 1 child dies from diarrhoea or pneumonia every 15 seconds. That’s two million children each year. Hand washing with soap at key occasions can reduce diarrhoea by 45% and pneumonia by 23%. Hand washing with soap is critical in India where over 6 lakh children under 5 die each year due to diarrhoea and pneumonia.

Samir Singh, Lifebuoy Global Brand Vice President, said, “Lifebuoy has changed the hand washing behaviour of 130 million people so far. With Kajol’s support we hope to share the film with millions of people across India, spreading the message of hand washing with soap to more people thus helping save the lives of children.”

Lifebuoy’s programmes teach school children, new mothers, and the community the practice of hand washing with soap at key occasions. This intervention also aims to contribute to United Nations Millennium Development Goal 4 (MDG 4) - to reduce the mortality of children under five by two-thirds by 2015.

Watch Lifebuoy’s Help a Child Reach 5 video here: www.youtube.com/helpachildreach5

About Lifebuoy

As the world’s leading health soap, Lifebuoy aims to make a difference by creating accessible hygiene products (soap) and promoting healthy hygiene habits.  With this in mind, Lifebuoy aims to change the hand washing behaviour of one billion people by 2015. Since 2010, with the launch of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, Lifebuoy has changed the handwashing behaviours of 130 million people globally and 47 million people in India.

Lifebuoy has been synonymous with health and hygiene since it first landed on Indian shores in 1895. It has been spreading the message of health and hygiene for over 100 years, and over two thirds of India’s households use Lifebuoy at least once a year. The famous Lifebuoy jingle “Tandurusti ki rakshakarta hai Lifebuoy, Lifebuoy hai jahantandurusti hai wahan” is the health anthem of India. Lifebuoy’s Swasthya Chetna was the single largest rural health and hygiene educational programme ever undertaken in India.

About the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan

The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP) sets out to decouple our growth from our environmental impact, while at the same time increasing our positive social impact.

The Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, launched in November 2010, set three key goals to be achieved by 2020:

1) Help more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being;

2) Source 100% of agricultural raw materials sustainably;

3) Halve the environmental footprint of its products across the value chain.

 

For Media Contact:

Atul Malikram

[email protected]

 

a{�NG
����east-language:EN-GB'>