Working with others to improve hygiene practices around the world
We work through partnerships with governments, non-profit organisations and community groups to find long-term solutions to health and hygiene challenges around the world.
These are examples of some of our most recent initiatives.
Promoting oral health
We have teamed up with the FDI World Dental Federation – which represents around 1 million dentists – in an ambitious dental health initiative. The aim of the campaign is simple: to help stop oral health ailments before they start.
Brushing twice daily with a fluoride toothpaste may be routine practice to some, but the reality is that for many people an oral health routine is not part of everyday activity. The partnership aims to encourage behaviour change by highlighting that good oral care is essential for general health and well-being.
As part of awareness-raising, all our toothpaste packs carry essential oral health messages. Similar messages appear in our TV and print advertising. Our efforts are given added professional weight by the FDI, which has agreed to include its logo and supportive statements as part of our joint communications drive.
"Unilever and FDI share the same global goal to promote oral health by developing and implementing oral health initiatives, which are sustainable and appropriate," according to Dr Habib Benzian, FDI's Word Dental Development and Health Promotion Director.
Saving lives through handwashing
Our long-standing Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetna programme has been raising awareness of the importance of handwashing with soap in India since 2002. Working in partnership with health educators, teachers, community leaders and government agencies, Swasthya Chetna has been delivering basic health and hygiene education to rural areas. The initiative has targeted the eight Indian states where deaths from diarrhoeal illnesses are the highest, and soap sales are lowest. The project has reached around 100 million people in nearly 44 000 villages.
Our Indian business has invested over $5 million in the programme and although we did not achieve our ambitious target of reaching 200 million people by the end of 2007, we intend to continue working towards this aim.
The success of the initiative was acknowledged by the Indian government when its postal department released a special 'first day cover' for a stamp promoting World Health Day. This is the first time that a brand has featured on a postage stamp cover.
Also in partnership with UNICEF we have extended Swasthya Chetna to Bangladesh and Pakistan and are looking to launch a version in Africa.
We are also working on a three-year handwashing campaign in Nigeria. Unilever Nigeria has pledged its support for a campaign managed by UNICEF, to alert a million school children to the dangers of poor hygiene. The campaign aims to improve awareness of germs and gastro-intestinal diseases that are passed on through a lack of proper handwashing. By the end of 2007, children at 141 schools had benefited from hygiene awareness training and improved water and sanitation facilities. The campaign aims to reach 222 schools by the end of 2008. Communicating these messages to children also has a wider impact as the children pass the hygiene message on to their families. We estimate the campaign's messages have reached over two million people this way.
We have also been working in Nigeria with Sightsavers International and Sokoko State Ministry of Health to help prevent blindness caused by trachoma, a disease whose spread can be countered by washing hands and faces with soap.
Water & Sanitation for the Urban Poor
We are working with Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) to look at hygiene issues among people living in urban slums. We have developed a hygiene behaviour change programme to pilot in Bangalore, India. This will assess whether improved water and sanitation conditions delivered in conjunction with a hygiene behaviour programme are better than infrastructure improvements alone.
The project has been launched in partnership with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and is tailored to enhance the benefits of improved access to water and sanitation in urban slum communities.
As well as building on Unilever's ongoing work in motivational behaviour change and handwashing with soap, the project will address household water storage and usage issues, and tackle the cleanliness of latrines and sanitation facilities.
The WSUP initiative coincides with the International Year of Sanitation 2008. Results from the pilot will be used to develop a tool for use across WSUP projects.
The science of home hygiene
The International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH) promotes the role of home hygiene in preventing infectious disease. This non-commercial foundation is funded by several organisations, including Unilever, and is guided by an independent scientific advisory board. It brings together scientists and healthcare professionals to better understand risk, promote further research and spread good practice.
During 2006, the Forum published research on the hygiene issues around household water storage in developed and developing countries. It also published reports on MRSA (the bacterium from the Staphylococcus aureus family) and its significance in homes and communities, and the importance of disinfecting dishcloths. Bleach is particularly effective in killing micro-organisms. Like the IFH, our Domestos brand is committed to improving general hygiene and health standards in communities around the world.
