Playfulness – key to establishing good hand hygiene practices

Helping children to develop good hygiene habits early on lays a foundation for the rest of their lives. The key to success is turning the education into fun and memorable activities for the children.

Engaging children in a playful way by using storytelling and games have proved a success factor in establishing good hygiene routines. Essity has long worked with developing educational material together with and for both teachers, parents, and schools. The material includes two tool kits aimed at children, teachers, and parents. “Ella’s Hand Washing Adventure” includes an app for younger children, hygiene brochures and educational material aimed at caregivers, while “Max’s Hand Washing School” consists of educational material to be used in schools for older children.

Essity’s employees also work with and regularly visit preschools and schools to share their knowledge on hand hygiene. Key is to arouse the children’s curiosity to understand the underlying principle between germs, hygiene and health, for instance by using experiments. One such experiment involves sticking dry and wet hands into sand to demonstrate the importance of drying the hands, while another one uses UV light to let the children see for themselves how much dirt is left after a mediocre hand wash.