A campaign to motivate and gather millions of people to wash their hands with soap around the world, a particular day was created which is known as Global Handwashing Day. It was started in the year 2008, and it is celebrated on October 15th every year.

The main Motto of this day was to raise awareness of handwashing with soap as a key to approach and prevent the diseases. The Global Handwashing Day was initiated to reduce childhood death rates related respiratory and diarrheal diseases by implementing simple methods such as washing hands with soap.

Hand washing with soap is extremely efficient and the most inexpensive way to prevent diarrhoea and ARI (Acute Respiratory Infections). Global Handwashing Day was created at annual World Water Week which was held in the year 2008 at Stockholm from 17th August to 23rd August.

The UN General Assembly initiated the Global Handwashing Day date in the year 2008 along with the International Year of Sanitation. It is an easy way to research and reduce the rate of these diseases by almost 25 to 50 percent.

Pneumonia is a major ARI, and this is one of the leading causes of mortality among children under five years old, and it is estimated that more than 1.8 million of children are affected with this disease. Diarrhoea and Pneumonia together account almost 3.5 million child deaths annually.

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Routine Handwashing is one of the best practices to follow and to stop the impact of spreading illness and germs to others. To overcome this, the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with soap established Global Handwashing Day.

Every year more than 200 million people celebrate Global Handwashing Day. In the year 2014, Madhya Pradesh won the Guinness World Record for the most massive handwashing programme. There were around 1,276,425 children from 51 districts have participated in the event.

In the year 2015, Lupok Central Elementary School, Philippines celebrated Global Handwashing Day by doing proper handwashing before starting classes. Sometimes, groups and organisations choose to celebrate Global Handwashing Day in different dates than 15th October.

In India, the cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar and his teammates joined an estimated 100 million school children across the country for better health and hygiene as a part of first Global Handwashing Day.

Global Handwashing Day Slogans

  • Don’t be dirty, Be neat, Wash your hands before your eat
  • Want to give your friends a hand shake, or a deadly disease? Wash your hands to put everybody at ease.
  • Wash, wash, wash your hands, and scrub the germs away! If you don’t, they will stay, and cling for the rest of the day.
  • Whether you’re an adult, a kid or a teen, washing hands is just good hygiene
  • Don’t be mean, don’t be a jerk, wash your hands before returning to work
  • Washing hands prevents disease and puts everyone at ease
  • cleanliness is next to godliness.
  • Infection control is in your hands.
  • Washing hands prevents disease and puts everyone else at ease.
  • Wash your hands and fingers for any germs that lingers.