DepEd celebrates Global Handwashing Day
By SECEL D. TAPON
The Department of Education (DepEd) in partnership with the Department of Health (DOH), World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shall organize this year’s celebration of the Global Handwashing Day with the theme “Our Future is at Hand-Let’s Move Forward Together.”
The global advocacy day is celebrated every 15th of October and is dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding on the importance of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent diseases and save lives.
DepEd Order No. 10, s. 2016 titled Policy and guidelines for the Comprehensive Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene in Schools (WinS) Program is designed to achieve learning and health outcomes and improve school attendance of students through a comprehensive, sustainable, and scalable school-based water, hygiene, sanitation, and deworming program.
The WinS program sets the basic requirements and standards on the five key elements, namely Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, Deworming and Health Education. The program aims to ensure correct knowledge and understanding among learners of effective hygiene and sanitation projects; improve equitable access to safe water, adequate toilets, and handwashing facilities; improve hygiene and sanitation practices among the learners to enable them to develop life-long positive hygiene and sanitation behaviors; ensure that the school are kept clean and safe through school-based solid waste management, proper drainage, the elimination of breeding grounds for mosquitoes to prevent vector-borne diseases, and food sanitation; and engage public and private partners in program implementation and sustainability. ###
