TED Talk – The Simple Power of Handwashing

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Larry Herbison is presenting this TED Talk by Dr. Myriam Sidibe

Dr. Myriam Sidibe promotes hand-washing with soap: setting up partnerships with governments, companies and communities to promote this simple, cheap, powerful disease-fighting tactic.

Myriam Sidibe is one of the only people in the world with a doctorate in public health focused on handwashing with soap. As the Global Social Mission Director for Lifebuoy soap, she has spent 14 years working with thousands of children, using the most effective ways to get them to wash their hands with soap at key occasions like before eating or after using the bathroom.

Sidibe leads Social Mission activity in 55 countries throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America with the aim of changing handwashing behaviors of one billion people by 2020 – that’s the biggest hygiene behavior change program in the world.

Sidibe is one of the driving forces behind the creation of Global Handwashing Day, which recognizes the need to raise awareness of handwashing with soap as a simple but lifesaving habit that can prevent disease. She represents Unilever and often partners with organizations such as Millennium Villages, the World Bank, PSI, WSUP, MCHIP and USAID to educate people about the importance of handwashing with soap, and runs programs that will help form healthy handwashing habits for life.