CSR: Unilever engages consumers on hand-washing to curb child mortality

As part of its CSR, Unilever Nigeria last week engaged Nigerians on the role of proper hygiene in reducing child mortality. Its intention is to secure Nigeria’s future. Nigeria accounts for 13 % of Worlds Under- 5 deaths. This report examines the multinational company’s social investment.

In 2003, Nigeria’s Federal Road Safety Corps enforced the compulsory use of seat-belts to curb road accidents which claim many lives. Today, FRSC has succeeded in inculcating that behavioural change as seat-belt practice has consciously caught up with motorists.

Similarly, Unilever, multinational company operating in the FMCG sector has for over 10 years, through its Lifebuoy soap product, relentlessly campaigned for hand-washing with soap, especially among children.

The Unilever hand-washing campaign entitled ‘Help a Child Reach 5’ was designed to save children and new-borns from preventable infections such as diarrhoea and pneumonia. This is also a journey to reduce child mortality.

The key goal of the campaign is to create a behavioural change in the society and improve the proportion of population using safely managed sanitation services, including hand-washing facility with soap and water.

Globally, 5.6 million children under the age of 5 died in 2016 and too many of these were from preventable diseases, according to Unilever. Out of this figure 2.7 million occurred in Africa with one million of them being new-borns

Nigeria accounts for 733,000 deaths of children under- 5. Out of this number, 215,000 deaths are due to preventable diseases. These figures, Unilever believes can be drastically reduced if the children and the family members are properly educated on the benefits of hygiene.

It is awful when children and some adults engage in some unhygienic activities or when they return from school and work or after using the toilet and thereafter take foods without washing their hands properly with soap. This can result to diarrhoea and death.

Concerned therefore, Unilever is determined at putting global spotlight on hand-washing with soap as a lifesaving habit. As part of its sustainable living plan, the global company targets to reach one billion people with hand-washing behaviour change messages in the next two years.

CEO of Unilever Nigeria, Yaw Nsarkoh said through the programme, the company seeks to decrease the incidence of pneumonia by 23 % and decrease incidence of diarrhoea by 45% by 2020.”Hand-washing with soap is the most cost-effective public health interventions to prevent child-death, hence our job at Unilever is to impact behaviours”, he said.

He regretted that Nigeria accounts for 13% of the world’s under-5 deaths and every day, 2,000 under-5 year old die in Nigeria

At the re-launch of Lifebuoy soap in Lagos recently, in continuation of driving the disease prevention message, various stakeholders underscored the importance of hand-washing message to the society. To ensure that the message penetrates to the target audience, Unilever partnered some organisations to take the message deep down.

Amy Adekunle, CEO Wellbeing Foundation Africa who has been working with Unilever in training nurses and midwives in this course said these medics are the first key touch points for mothers during pregnancy or childbirth. She emphasised the importance of training the nurses to educate the mothers as children are most vulnerable to infections at early stages of life, and if not well handled it can impact negatively on growth and development.

“Training them to discuss habit change with mothers is important so that the mothers start practicing hand-washing with soap on key occasions like before breast-feeding their child. Working together, PPP such as these can pioneer innovative and practical initiatives to raise awareness of what good hygiene means”, Adekunle said.

Another organisation, Sightsavers has since 2014  been working with Unilever Lifebuoy on a flagship programme called ‘Super School of 5’ that aims to prevent childhood blindness which is caused by an infection but preventable disease called trachoma.

In his contribution, Sunday Isiyaku, Country director of Sightsavers said classrooms are key touch points to empower the youth in Nigeria. “We use tools like comics, puzzles, stories and games to make face and hand-washing with soap fun for children. We have observed the natural confidence of students improving when they have clean faces and hands. Empowering the youth of Nigeria will ensure that the next generation of Nigerians can enjoy an infection-free childhood”, Isiyaku said.

Also speaking, Nwaoma Nwaogu, Pediatrician at Grorge Memorial Medical Center described hand hygiene a procedure for the purpose of reducing the number of micro-organisms on the skin. “When this procedure is performed with soap and water it is called hand-washing”

She said hand-washing is as important to adults as it is to children as there are micro-organisms everywhere and on surfaces in  homes, schools and other places that can be quite harmful and make children and adults alike susceptible to illnesses.

Osato Evbuomwvan, Category Manager, Skin cleansing, Unilever Nigeria said Lifebuoy has impacted the hand-washing behaviour of 425 million across 30 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

She said that giving people access to soap is not enough but changing people’s hygiene behaviours is key in improving hygiene outcomes for mothers and children in Nigeria.

Speaking on the roles of businesses in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, Osato said businesses play fundamental roles in this direction, stating that realising SDGs will improve the environment for doing business and build markets. According to her, this is why Unilever is partnering some organisations so that the combined expertise can be leveraged to bring about large scale positive change in the hygiene sector.

At the event, Unilever Nigeria also unveiled Nigerian singer-songwriter, Omawumi Megbele as Lifebuoy brand ambassador; to help children adopt better hygiene practices

This is  part of the nationwide campaign aimed at helping 2 million children adopt better hygiene practices and reducing child mortality.

Brand Manager, Lifebuoy, Lanre Odupe, spoke on the brand’s rationale in selecting the artiste to represent the campaign, saying, “Omawumi is an excellent and passionate professional, a singer who is relatable to parents, guardians and their children. Being a mother herself she fully understands the need to address preventable diseases in Nigeria, and we are extremely delighted to have her on this initiative.”

Omawumi expressed appreciation to the Lifebuoy brand while stressing the importance of good hygiene in maintaining good health.

“Basic hygiene interventions like this can make a huge difference to the current issue of child mortality, and it would in turn help improve the health and wellbeing of children especially those under 5 years,” she said.

DANIEL OBI