Image and Content Courtesy: Global Handwashing.org The practice of handwashing with soap tops the international hygiene agenda this year with the first-ever Global Handwashing Day, slated for Wednesday 15 October 2008. With 2008 as the UN International Year of Sanitation, the Global Handwashing Day will echo and reinforce its call for improved hygiene practices. The guiding vision of Global Handwashing Day is a local and global culture of handwashing with soap. Although people around the world wash their hands with water, very few wash their hands with soap at the critical occasions. Handwashing with soap is the most effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrheal and acute respiratory infections, which take the lives of millions of children in developing countries every year. Together, they are responsible for the majority of all child deaths. Yet, despite its lifesaving potential, handwashing with soap is seldom practiced and difficult to promote. The challenge is to transform handwashing with soap from an abstract good idea into an automatic behavior performed in homes, schools, and communities worldwide. Turning handwashing with soap before eating and after using the toilet into an ingrained habit could save more lives than any single vaccine or medical intervention. The agencies leading the Global Handwashing Day efforts are part of the Global PPPHW and include (but are not limited to) the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP/World Bank), UNICEF, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USAID through the Hygiene Improvement Project (HIP), Procter and Gamble and Unilever. More information can be had here: Global Handwashing Day 2008 Download the Planner's Guide here: Planner's Guide to Global Handwashing day