Sadili Oval Sports Academy Celebrates 2017 Global Handwashing Day

On 13^th October 2017, hundreds of pupils from 9 Primary schools in Kibera and their teachers gathered at Magoso Primary in Kibera for an early celebration of this year’s edition of Global Handwashing Day. This event was made possible through partnership between various organizations and institutions in Nairobi including Sadili Oval Sports Academy, Savo Foundation and the Ministry of Health among others. The Ministry of Health was represented by Public Health Officers from Nairobi’s Kibera and Lang’ata areas. This year’s Global Handwashing Day theme was ‘Our Hands, Our Future’,  reminding us that handwashing protects our own health, but also allows us to build our own futures, as well as those of our communities, and the world.

The event commenced with an introduction of this year’s theme and a brief explanation on what it means to everyone- both children and adults. This was followed by a short question and answer session where the pupils were given an opportunity to show how much they know about hand hygiene. For each correct answer, a piece of soap was given to a child.

One of the messages stressed during the event was the 5 critical times of handwashing: after visiting the toilet, before eating, after changing the baby’s nappy, before cooking and before feeding the baby.

The pupils were all surprised that a simple act of handwashing during these critical times could save them from catching so many diseases. The discussions were then followed by a handwashing demonstration where the children were taken through all the steps involved in proper handwashing.

Finally, bar soaps and leaky tins were donated to all the schools that attended the event. The leaky tins were donated courtesy of Sadili Oval Sports Academy.

Prior to this day, Sadili Oval Sports Academy through its Court of Dreams (WASH) project had been conducting weekly hand washing campaigns in 4 of the schools participating in the project in Kibera. A similar campaign was done during a tennis tournament held at Sadili Oval grounds on 7th October 2017 (http://sadiliovalnews.blogspot.co.ke/2017/10/hand-washing-campaign-embraced-at.html ). All these were done as build-up activities for the Global Handwashing Day, officially marked by the whole world on 15th October.

Court of Dreams uses tennis to promote good health among children under the age of 10. One of its major focus areas is promotion of good hand hygiene practices- an idea that is globally accepted considered as the easiest and cheapest way of preventing many illnesses. 

Global Handwashing Day is an annual global advocacy day dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding about the importance of handwashing with soap as an easy, effective, and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.