How to wash your hands

One of the main inspirations for setting up LB4P was the result of a volunteering trip I took to Nepal with Raleigh International in 2018. For three months I lived in a Nepali village, Sanutar, in the middle of beautiful hills with a local mother and daughter. Whilst there, I worked on a WASH programme (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene). This included the building of a water system for the locals and lessons for the kids in the village school. One of these lessons was ‘How to wash your hands’.
 
In light of the recent corona virus I figured it’d be apt to repeat that lesson for you now.
 

How to wash your hands 

EK (Step one)
Wet hands with water.

 
DUI (Step two)
Rub soap onto your hands - for this demo I've used the Bare Coconuts soap bar. 

 
TIN (Step three)
Rub hands palm to palm.

 
CHAR (Step four)
Rub right palm over back of left, then repeat left palm over right.

PACH (Step five)
Rub palm to palm with fingers interlaced.

CHA (Step six)
Rub backs of fingers over palms with fingers interlocked.

SAT (Step seven)
Hold left thumb with right hand, then repeat on other side.

 
AT (Step eight)
Rub tips of left fingers in right palm, then repeat with right fingers in left palm.

NAU (Step nine)
Wash wrists.

DAS (Step ten)
Rinse hands with water.

Soap is one of the easiest plastic free swaps and we’ve got all sorts to keep your hands, body and lives safe. We've even got soap for babies!
 
If you’re teaching your kids how to wash their hands, why not try the following to make it a little bit more fun.
 

1. Go outside, get some dirt and wipe onto your kids hands. See how clean they can get them
2. If you’ve got more than one little person let them have a competition to see who can get the cleanest hands.
3. Practice washing hands at intervals throughout the day
4. Use the Nepali numbers above or German or Spanish to teach them more a language at the same time!
5. Use a bit of magic in the following test…

 
Why should you wash your hands? The magic test
Fill a little dish with water and black pepper so the children can see the pepper swimming in the water
Ask them to put their finger without any soap into the dish, the pepper won’t move and might even stick to their finger
Next put soap on their finger and the pepper should move away!

There’s nothing better than a bit of magic to make them fall in love with washing their hands!
 
What are your top tips? Let us know in the comments.