Meeting responds to World Toilet Day in Hanoi

November 19, 2016 | 13:08

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The Ministry of Health, Vietnam Youth Federation, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), and Unilever Vietnam Foundation’s cleaning product brand Vim today jointly held a meeting in Hanoi in response to the World Toilet Day and to review the results of a programme on improving environmental sanitation conditions and people’s health through various communication and sustainable health education models.

The meeting encompassed diverse activities, such as demonstration of a giant toilet model made from 1,000 Vim bottles, or a run attracting more than 3,000 pupils, students and representatives from different government agencies, organisations, and international organisations.

The final round of a competition to select best presenters for the health and toilet sanitation programmme also took place on the occasion with the attendance of five teams from Thai Binh, Nam Dinh, Ninh Binh, Hung Yen and Nghe An provinces.

According to director of Ministry of Health’s Health Environment Management Agency Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, despite posting encouraging achievements, multiple challenges have still existed in environmental sanitation and hygiene field in rural areas.

Accordingly, only 65 per cent of families in rural areas had built standard toilets by end of 2015. The situation was more critical in the northern highland, the Central Highlands and Mekong Delta regions.

Tran Vu Hoai, deputy chairman of Unilever Vietnam Foundation, said that the Foundation’s cleaning brand Vim, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, has set forth the target of improving sanitation conditions for around 10 million Vietnamese people by 2018.

The programme has thus far benefitted more than four million residents nationwide.

This is part of Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan in Vietnam with an aim to make more than 20 million Vietnamese lead a better life by improving their health and well-being by 2020.

By By Anh Duc

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