Daily Times

UMERKOT: Members of civil society and social welfare bodies urged the Sindh administration to spend a larger portion of development funds allocated for districts on safe drinking water and sanitation facilities’ improvement.

They said sanitation related infrastructure in rural Sindh remained in dismal conditions and needed rehabilitation.

At the occasion of Global Handwashing Day with the theme ‘Our Hands, Our Future’, Dr Muhammad Murad Palli said handwashing with soap could reduce many diarrhoeal diseases and was a basic step to reduce epidemic diseases.

Rural women should be educated to take care of their children and maintain hygiene at all levels.

Dr Palli suggested integrating hygiene in all health related projects and to educate people on the subject. During the concluding session of the event organised by AWARE in collaboration with Plan International, nutrition specialist Dr Mehboob Ali Samejo said AWARE had been trying to set good examples but we needed to work with an integrated approach instead of working in isolation, to provide better results.

He suggested that all health and hygiene related projects should be embedded with nutrition aspects, because Umerkot district fell among the most malnourished areas of Sindh.

Shifa Foundation Nutrition Coordinator Ghulam Ali said celebration of global hand washing day demanded raising awareness about importance of hand washing and promote hand washing habits.

To encourage hand washing every day, organisations and communities can ensure access to hand washing stations with soap and for that there was a need to educate people about importance of hand washing.

This simple but precious activity could save more lives than any vaccine or medical intervention, preventing spread of infection and keeping the next generation healthy, he said.

He briefed that hand washing with soap was among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrhoeal diseases.

Sharifan, a community activist, urged concerned stakeholders to play their due role to promote this habit. If this habit was adopted by each member of a household, especially mothers, then we can move to a healthy society as well towards a brighter future, she added.

Ashique Hussain from AWARE, Duaroko Das from TRDP, Ghulam Murtaza Jhokhio from RTP, Mushtaq Mahar, Naheed Atta and others highlighted importance of the day. They also urged Sindh government that development funds for districts should be spent judiciously. At the occasion, students from various schools presented tableaus, poetry, stage dramas and speeches to raise awareness of the Global Handwashing Day.

Published in Daily Times, October 16^th 2017.