‘WE ARE MAKING HAND WASHING A NORM IN AFRCA ESPECIALLY’
MYRIAM SIDIBE (Dr.PH)
She is a crusader for clean hands with PHD in hand washing, a course that has only two in the world as its experts. With 14 years in public health, Myriam Sidibe has worked across Africa and Asia (Swaziland, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Mali, East Timor, India and Indonesia), specialising in the implementation and evaluation of public health programs with a direct relevance to hygiene promotion programmes. She has used her expertise to work with various NGOs and UN organisations such as Unicef and the World Bank both in relief and development settings.
Myriam, Global Social Mission director (Lifebouy) with Unilever, one of Nigerian leading manufacturers of high quality products advocates importance of washing hands thoroughly to prevent germs.
In this interview with Brands Mogu which was held before the eventl, the Malian woman revealed the 11 occasions per day when the hands needed to be wash thoroughly, how world record was set at the Global handwashing day in Nigeria, why the habit of washing hands must be cultivate to make a clean nation in Nigeria, among sundries.

What’s the motive behind the global hand washing day celebration?

Am in Nigeria purposely to celebrate the global hand washing day we want to make sure we position hand washing day as a day to remember for hygiene and by practice days by children especially after this day. Diseases such as diehoea and others are caused by ingestion of germs from our hands especially. Nigeria is the country with high mortality rate in children and leading country in terms of diehoea infection. Surveys showed that every year about 400, 000 children die in Africa due to diohea infection and 150,000 in Nigeria alone. With 6years in Unilever I have been leading this agenda and the team had visited close to 65countries with this mission.
Key prevention of diehoea, hand washing reduces dieohea for like 60percent which saves life. Soap is not a luxury, so usage of soap ,especially lifebuoy will definitely rduces dieoheoa.
Why global hand washing becomes a social mission is that people health is important to us. Though still new in Nigeria but across the world more than 80 percent families buy lifebuoy medicated soap to wash hands and body u could imagine how many lives are being save daily. Our target worldwide is to get 1billion people using soap to wash hand on a daily basis, it’s our big social mission to make hand washing a norm all over the world especially Africa. We are coming in with what we know we can do best and that’s the social angle which involves hand washing.
Lifebuoy co-founded Global Handwashing Day, an international, UN-recognised day dedicated to raising awareness of the importance of handwashing with soap to reduce disease, in 2008. Since then Lifebuoy has reached millions of children with hygiene education, including major programmes in Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Kenya and Vietnam.
Different countries are driving pledging in different ways. A pan-African campaign is taking place using mobile phones to make pledges and people can make handprints on special walls to show their commitment. Last year millions of children in more than 100 countries heard the message. Activities included two Guinness World Record attempts in Bangladesh and Kenya for the most number of people washing their hands at the same time. In Indonesia alone, more than three million children washed their hands and learned better hygiene habits.
Educating people on why handwashing matters and how to make it a habit is essential if we are to achieve Millennium Development Goal 4, there is still a long way to go but we are making progress. Lifebuoy's commitment to raise awareness about the importance of handwashing and to build healthy hygiene habits for over a million Nigerian children for life, is a task we are very committed to.
Global Handwashing Day and its related hygiene education activities are some of the many ways Lifebuoy plans to achieve its target of changing the hygiene behaviour of one billion people globally by 2015 as part of Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan. One of the most cost-effective public health interventions studies have shown that hand washing with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhoea disease by over 40 percent.
Turning hand washing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into an ingrained habit could save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention, cutting deaths from diarrhoea by almost half and deaths from acute respiratory infections by one-quarter.
Lifebuoy is the world's oldest health soap and Unilever's second oldest brand (after Sunlight soap), launched in 1894. Today it is the world's best-selling anti-bacterial soap brand, sold in 55 developing and emerging countries around the world.

What strategy do you have to sustain this habit you are encouraging?
In a much as we integrate it into the mind set of the public via all medium it definitely going to have sustainable impact. Human generally have11 occasions in a day to do hand washing and on average people use soap once, maybe just after using the toilet. For us every household have soap our mission is to remind them to use it the more to prevent any deadly diseases. Apart from taking ones bath, we need to wash our hands with soap always.
Hand washing should be carried out after going to the toilet, helping someone else use the toilet, changing baby’s nappies and wash the baby’s hands also; coughing, sneezing, blowing the nose or wiping a baby’s nose; handling uncooked food, especially raw meat, poultry or fresh eggs; and handling of garbage.
Some critical times to clean your hands are before and after meals and snacks, before caring for young children, after touching a public surface, before and after preparing food, especially raw meat, poultry, or seafood, after using the restroom, when hands are dirty, after touching animals, When you or someone around you is ill.
More than 3.5 million children under five die each year from diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections but up to half that number could be saved through something as simple as handwashing with soap. To draw attention to this enormous health challenge, one of the main causes of child mortality, Lifebuoy soap has developed a Facebook application so people can pledge to wash their hands before eating and bring health and hygiene education to children. For each pledge received between now and till October ending, Lifebuoy and its partners will reach one more child. Together we aim to reach one million children with this life-saving message.

Most of your marketing style most times is the media; how about those who are not privilege to the media in any way, how do they benefit from this?
The fact that we use both above and below the line advertising, to ensure that we take it to all ends in every country visited we use community radio services and even visit rural areas where we work with school children and mother to educate them about washing hand with soap. We don’t work in isolation; the idea is for every one to be aware of the hygiene way of hand washing. We have track records on how these have worked and definitely it will work in Nigeria.

Can u let us into your background?
I obtained a BSc in Agricultural engineering in McGill University in Canada. From there I went to work in a community based water supply project in rural area of Mali. I realised during this experience that I needed to gain more knowledge in the sector and returned to do a MSc in Water and Waste engineering at WEDC (Water, engineering and Development centre) at Loughborough University.
I then went on to work in Burundi for two years in the rural areas of Burundi as a Water and Sanitation programme manager and Field Coordinator for the International Rescue Committee. I then came across the Dr PH programme and thought this would give the ideal combinations of skills to make a difference in my field in the developing world.
My professional attachment will most likely be with Unicef and my research thesis on School Sanitation and hygiene. Over the past years, I have done consultancy work with the Water and Sanitation programme (World Bank) and Unicef mainly in East Africa.