-
So imagine,
-
imagine that a plane is about to crash
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with 250 children and babies,
-
and if you knew how to stop that, would you?
-
Now imagine
-
that 60 planes full of babies under five
-
crash every single day.
-
That's the number of kids
-
that never make it to their fifth birthday.
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6.6 million children
-
never make it to their fifth birthday.
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Most of these deaths are preventable,
-
and that doesn't just make me sad,
-
it makes me angry,
-
and it makes me determined.
-
Diarrhea and pneumonia
-
are among the top two killers
-
of children under five,
-
and what we can do to prevent these diseases
-
isn't some smart,
-
new technological innovations.
-
It's one of the world's oldest inventions:
-
a bar of soap.
-
Washing hands with soap,
-
a habit we all take for granted,
-
can reduce diarrhea by half,
-
can reduce respiratory infections by one third.
-
Handwashing with soap
-
can have an impact
-
on reducing flu, trachoma, SARS,
-
and most recently in the case of cholera
-
and Ebola outbreak,
-
one of the key interventions
-
is handwashing with soap.
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Handwashing with soap keeps kids in school.
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It stops babies from dying.
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Handwashing with soap
-
is one of the most cost-effective
-
ways of saving children's lives.
-
It can save over 600,000 children every year.
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That's the equivalent of stopping
-
10 jumbo jets
-
full of babies and children
-
from crashing every single day.
-
I think you'll agree with me that that's a pretty
-
useful public health intervention.
-
So now just take a minute.
-
I think you need to get to
know the person next to you.
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Why don't you just shake their hands.
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Please shake their hands.
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All right, get to know each other.
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They look really pretty.
-
All right.
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So what if I told you
-
that the person whose hands you just shook
-
actually didn't wash their hands
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when they were coming out of the toilet?
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They don't look so pretty anymore, right?
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(Laughter)
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Pretty yucky, you would agree with me.
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Well, statistics are actually showing
-
that four people out of five
-
don't wash their hands when
they come out of the toilet,
-
globally.
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And the same way,
-
we don't do it when we've got fancy toilets,
-
running water, and soap available,
-
it's the same thing in the countries
-
where child mortality is really high.
-
What is it? Is there no soap?
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Actually, soap is available.
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In 90 percent of households in India,
-
94 percent of households in Kenya,
-
you will find soap.
-
Even in countries where soap is the lowest,
-
like Ethiopia, we are at 50 percent.
-
So why is it?
-
Why aren't people washing their hands?
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Why is it that [???],
-
this young boy that I met in India,
-
isn't washing his hands?
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Well, in [??]'s family,
-
soap is used for bathing,
-
soap is used for laundry,
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soap is used for washing dishes.
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His parents think sometimes
-
it's a precious commodity,
-
so they'll keep it in a cupboard.
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They'll keep it away from him so he doesn't waste it.
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On average, in [??]'s family,
-
they will use soap for washing hands
-
once a day
-
at the very best, and sometimes
-
even once a week for washing hands with soap.
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What's the result of that?
-
Children pick up disease
-
in the places that's supposed to love them
-
and protect them the most, in their homes.
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Think about where you learned to wash your hands.
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Did you learn to wash your hands at home?
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Did you learn to wash your hands in school?
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I think behavioral scientists will tell you
-
that it's very difficult to change the habits
-
that you have had early in life.
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However, we all copy what everyone else does,
-
and local cultural norms are something
-
that shape how we change our behavior,
-
and this is where the private sector comes in.
-
Every second in Asia and Africa,
-
mothers buy, 111 mothers
-
will buy this bar to protect their family.
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Many women in India will tell you
-
they learned all about hygiene, diseases,
-
from this bar of soap from Lifebuoy brand.
-
Iconic brands like this one
-
have a responsibility to do good
-
in the places where they sell their products.
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It's that belief, plus the scale of Unilever,
-
that allows us to keep talking about
-
hand-washing with soap and
hygiene to these mothers.
-
Big business and brands can change
-
and shift those social norms
-
and make a difference for those habits
-
that are so stubborn.
-
Think about it:
-
marketeers spend all their time
-
making us switch from one brand to the other.
-
And actually, they know how to transform
-
science and facts into compelling messages.
-
Just for a minute, imagine
-
when they put all their forces behind
-
a message as powerful as handwashing with soap.
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The profit motive is transforming health outcomes
-
in this world.
-
But it's been happening for centuries:
-
the Lifebuoy brand was launched in 1894
-
in Victorian England
-
to actually combat cholera.
-
Last week, I was in Ghana
-
with the Minister of Health,
-
because if you don't know,
-
there's a cholera outbreak in Ghana at the moment.
-
118 years later,
-
the solution is exactly the same:
-
it's about ensuring that they have access
-
to this bar of soap,
-
and that they're using it,
-
because that's the number one way
-
to actually stop cholera from spreading.
-
I think this drive for profit
-
is extremely powerful,
-
sometimes more powerful than
-
the most committed charity or government.
-
Government is doing what they can,
-
especially in the term of the pandemics
-
and epidemics such as cholera,
-
or Ebola at the moment.
-
But we've competing priorities:
-
the budget is not always there,
-
and when you think about this,
-
you think about what is required
-
to make hand-washing a daily habit,
-
it requires sustained funding
-
to refine this behavior.
-
In short, those that fight for public health
-
are actually dependent upon the soap companies
-
to keep promoting hand-washing with soap.
-
We have friends like USAID,
-
the Global Public-Private Partnership
for Handwashing with Soap
-
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,
-
[PLAN?], WaterAid,
-
that all believe
-
for a win-win-win partnership.
-
Win for the public sector,
-
because we help them reach their targets.
-
Win for the private sector,
-
because we build new generations
-
of future handwashers.
-
And most importantly,
-
win for the most vulnerable.
-
On the 15th of October,
-
we will celebrate Global Handwashing Day.
-
School, communities,
-
our friends in the public sector,
-
and our friends in the private sector,
-
yes on that day even our competitors,
-
we all join hands to celebrate
-
the world's most important
-
public health intervention.
-
What's required,
-
and again where the private sector
can make a huge difference,
-
is coming up with this big, creative thinking
-
that drives advocacy.
-
If you take our Help A Child Reach 5 campaign,
-
we've created great films
-
that bring the message of handwashing with soap
-
to the everyday person
-
in a way that can relate to them.
-
We've had over 30 million views.
-
Most of these discussions are still happening online.
-
I urge you to take five minutes
-
and look at those films.
-
I come from Mali,
-
one of the world's poorest countries.
-
I grew up in a family where every dinner conversation
-
was around social justice.
-
I trained in Europe's premier school of public health.
-
I think I'm probably one of the only women
-
in my country with this high degree in health,
-
and the only one
-
with a doctorate in handwashing with soap.
-
(Laughter)
-
(Applause)
-
Nine years ago, I decided,
-
with a successful public health career in the making,
-
that I could make the biggest impact coming,
-
selling, and promoting the world's best invention
-
in public health: soap.
-
We run today the world's largest
-
handwashing program
-
by any public health standards.
-
We've reached over 183 million people
-
in 16 countries.
-
My team and I have the ambition
-
to reach one billion by 2020.
-
Over the last four years,
-
business has grown double digits,
-
whilst child mortality has reduced
-
in all the places where soap use has increased.
-
It may be uncomfortable for some to hear
-
— business growth and lives saved
-
somehow equated in the same sentence —
-
but it is that business growth
-
that allows us to keep doing more.
-
Without it, and without talking about it,
-
we cannot achieve the change that we need.
-
Last week, my team and I
-
spent time visiting mothers
-
that have all experienced the same thing:
-
the death of a newborn.
-
I'm a mom. I can't imagine anything more powerful
-
and more painful.
-
This one is from Myanmar.
-
She had the most beautiful smile,
-
the smile, I think, that life gives you
-
when you've had a second chance.
-
Her son, [??], is her second one.
-
She had a daughter
-
who passed away at three weeks,
-
and we know that the majority
-
of children that actually die
-
die in the first month of their life,
-
and we know that if we give a bar of soap
-
to every skilled birth attendant,
-
and that soap is used before touching the babies,
-
we can reduce and make a change
-
in terms of those numbers.
-
And that's what inspires me,
-
inspires me to continue in this mission,
-
to know that I can equip her
-
with what's needed
-
so that she can do
-
the most beautiful job in the world:
-
nurturing her newborn.
-
And next time you think of a gift
-
for a new mom and her family,
-
don't look far: buy her a soap.
-
It's the most beautiful invention in public health.
-
I hope you will join us
-
and make handwashing part of your daily lives
-
and our daily lives
-
and help more children like [??]
-
reach their fifth birthday.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause)