Complete care for your Hands

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Hand washing is a good personal hygiene practice that must be done as many times as required daily. As a routine practice, it takes conscious effort and discipline to keep up with the practice. Our hands are vital part of the body and as such we need to take good care of it, your ability to define the use/function of the hand will help you determine how best to care for it.

Primarily, our hands are used to hold and make physical contact with things, there seems to be no limit to what we can do with our hands but we need to be careful not to substitute our hands for tools. Rather than use your hands to unscrew or fasten a screw or nut, use the appropriate tool; screw driver or spanner respectively. I understand that there are certain things we can not do without making contact with regularly but special attention must be given to such identified things. For example; door handle, door bell, tap head, toilet flush, light switch, plug, socket… There are also people who use their hands as substitute for hand packer after sweeping the floor, either out of ignorance or because they are in a hurry to clear the dirt, whichever way it’s an abuse of the hand.  

Hands remain the most possible way to transfer germs from one person to another or from self to the mouth, so if you must live healthy, you need to pay attention to your hands at all time and the way to go about it is through regular hand washing and the use of sanitizer.

Hand washing is most effective when we use an antiseptic soap/ash, under running water with a clean dry hand towel ready for use.

When do I wash my hands?

This list is suggestive, it is expected that it will assist you to identify activities that require hand washing and how to do it effectively. It is not meant to be a complete list but it will help you identify other areas hand washing is required in your daily activities.

·         After work

·         After school

·         Before and after meal

·         After sneezing and coughing

·         After using the toilet

·         After handling money

·         After handling tools

·         After handling poultry product

·         After handling raw food, meat/fish and fresh vegetable

Hand washing techniques

The following steps should be followed according to sequence, in order to achieve optimum cleanliness. 

1^st STEP – Palm to palm

This step involves applying some portion of antiseptic solvent into one of your palm, while you rub the other palm until the soap ladder.

2^nd STEP – Palm to back of hand

This step involves applying the ladder formed in 1^st step, right palm on back left hand and left palm on back right hand and massage thoroughly.

3^rd STEP – Fingers between fingers

This step involves applying the ladder formed above to clean in-between the fingers. To do this, use the right hand fingers to clean in-between the fingers on the left hand and the left hand fingers to clean in-between the fingers on the right hand.

 4^th STEP – Nails and finger tips

This step involves applying the ladder formed above by the right hand to thoroughly clean the nails and finger tip of the left hand and vice versa.

5^th STEP – Palm to wrist

This step involves applying the ladder formed by the right hand palm to thoroughly clean the left wrist, while the left hand palm to thoroughly clean the right hand.

6^th STEP – Rinse thoroughly

After 1^st to 5^th step above, it is time to rinse the soap/solvent ladder thoroughly out from your hands under running water. It is advisable you since your hands under running water to ensure thorough rinsing rather than rinsing in a container. 

Introducing Personal Hygiene Box Project

Personal hygiene involves routine activities that ensure cleanliness and prevention of dirt and germs that cause illness. It includes complete care for the mouth, nose, hands, ear, hair, skin and feet.

Your hands for instance are very important and active part of your body that makes contact with people and things around. As such the hand needs proper care to prevent accumulation of dirt and germs that causes diseases and infection.

The need for personal hygiene ranges from children, adolescent and adult. Certain items are required to ensure every one maintain a good hygiene. This brought about the big idea I call ‘Personal Hygiene Box’; a collection of basic items require to maintaining daily good hygiene all in a box.

The impact of Personal Hygiene Box as a brand on an average entrepreneur and to the society at large is enormous.

It helps to promote good personal hygiene

It helps to reduce spread of germs that cause illness

It creates jobs and reduces unemployment

It improve trade, especially the items included in the Personal Hygiene Box

It is universal and can be replicated in any part of the world

It is not capital intensive

Any one and every one can venture into it because it does not require any specialize skills

It promote chain of trade relationship as all the items used are source for locally

The Personal Hygiene Box, include but not limited to the following items;

Tooth brush and floride paste (for oral hygiene)

Cotton bud (for ear hygiene)

Hair shampoo, cream and comb (hair hygiene)

Anti bacteria bathing soap and sponge (for skin hygiene)

Feet scrubbing stone and nail cutter

Liquid antiseptic

Handkerchief and soft tissue

Body cream and hand sanitizer

For adolescent and adult, additional items are included in the box because this stage of growth comes with physiological changes in the body that require special attention.

Deodorant

Shaving stick

Sanitary towel

An entrepreneur can start this health base enterprise with an average capital of $100 and it will cost about $10 for each ‘PHB’. You need to source for the item that makes up the Personal Hygiene Box, customize/brand the box or bag, package neatly and sell at a fixed price with some margin.

The personal Hygiene Box can be sold to the public at wholesale prices in the market, hospital, big stores and supermarket for easy accessibility. The enterprise can also be home base and online sale is possible. Private sector, government and non government organization can partner with the entrepreneur to get the ‘PHB’ to the inner cities and street corners for free distribution to people who are most affected and struggling with poor hygiene.  

If households, companies, hospitals, schools and organizations have provision for ‘First Aid Box’, I believe ‘Personal Hygiene Box’ should be introduced and generally accepted.