Kajol: India's Hand Washing Icon
A child dies from diarrhea or pneumonia every 15 seconds. Hand washing alone could reduce diarrhea by 45% and pneumonia by 23%, yet to many in the developing world, the link between hand washing and these life-threatening conditions is simply not known.
Especially in India, hand washing awareness is vital. Over two million Indian children die before their 5th birthday every year due to infections that could be prevented with basic soap and water.
Upon learning of these figures, Indian actress and mother Kajol Devgan (known mononymously as "Kajol") was shocked.
"I thought it would be something much bigger," she said. "I thought they would say drought...or children are dying because of some great disease. But it wasn't something like that. It was something small. It was something preventable. It was something with just a basic idea of hygiene you could prevent."
And try to prevent it is just what she had done.
Since August 2013 the Bollywood star has become a hand washing icon of India, using her celebrity status to help boost participation in the Help a Child Reach 5 hand washing campaign, which aims to eradicate diarrhea one village at a time.
In this video, Kajol discusses hygiene in Indian culture, and why she is optimistic that hand washing will be adopted widely, once the message is out.