Germ City: Clean Hands, Healthy People is a science based educational program to promote awareness, effectiveness, and frequency of hand hygiene at home, work, and in the community.
The focus is to:
enhance awareness of the important of good hand hygiene
improve the effectiveness and frequency all types of hand hygiene options.
The program works with schools, health care facilities, and community groups to teach hand hygiene to children, youth, adults, senior citizens, and at-risk groups in rural and urban settings.
The Germ City unit includes a lightproof tent, equipped with 2 black lights, a UV light sensitive lotion or "pretend germ lotion," and posters illustrating "how to wash your hands" and "when to wash your hands."
The "pretend germ lotion" is applied to hands. Participants go through the Germ City tent to observe the amount of germs that are on their hands, then clean their hands using 1) soap and water, 2) waterless hand sanitizer, or 3) hand wipes. Participants return to the tent to see how well they cleaned their hands.
For more information about the program, contact:
Christine Hanakawa
Oahu County 4-H
Cooperative Extension Service
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources
University of Hawaii at Manoa
1955 East West Rd. #217
Honolulu, HI 96822
Phone: (808) 956-7196
Email: chanakaw@hawaii.edu