Primary grade students in rural schools still use black-slate and chalk sticks to write with. After frequently writing and wiping the slate with their bare hands, it is common for the chalk powder to get smeared all over their hands. So Savlon introduced Savlon Healthy Hands Chalk Sticks - special chalk sticks infused with soap. These could be used to write just like regular chalk sticks, but the chalk powder accumulated on kids' hands acted as cleansing soap when their hands came in contact with water. This simple innovation automatically turned washing hands with soap into an everyday habit without requiring any extra effort from children.

For the first phase, Savlon identified 100 rural schools across India based on health figures. Under ‘Healthy India Mission’ these special chalk sticks were provided to more than 150,000 students for free. On Children's Day, an online film covering this activity was released on multiple social platforms. Owing to a great response and demand from schools and NGOs across the country, a pan-India model to distribute it on a large scale is being designed. The online strategy was designed to reach social media micro-communities and parental blogs, creating a reach of 5,105,340 within those communities. Distribution channels were later opened for NGOs crossing supply of more than 50,000 boxes. For the second phase, a distribution model has been planned in collaboration with Akshay Patra, the world's largest provider of mid-day meals in schools, with a reach of more than a million kids every day.

• The world’s largest provider of mid-day meals in schools – ‘Akshaya Patra’ has approached us to distribute these chalk sticks, reaching more that an million kids every day.

• These chalk sticks have helped induce the habit of hand-washing with soap in more than 150,000 children, spanning 100 schools in India.

• 79 newspapers publicized this innovation.

• India’s No.1 Hindi news channel featured the story at prime-time.

• This simple idea sparked conversation about hand-washing with a reach of 5.1 million on Twitter and 4.3 million on Facebook in just the first 4 days.

• It reached 5,105,340 parents via parental blogs and micro-communities online.

• This generated a large demand from schools and NGOs.

• This simple innovation helped in Savlon’s re-launch in the country as a major player in the health & hygiene category.

As part of Savlon's ongoing school outreach initiative - ‘Healthy India Mission’, we reached kids in schools with an innovative product that was easy to use and adopt. This was implemented to individually educate kids about good hand hygiene. With this simple innovation Savlon reached kids in over 100 schools across the country and successfully helped induce the habit of everyday hand-washing without any spends on mainline media.

Being a health & hygiene brand in India, Savlon’s primary task was to address one of the most critical issues prevalent in rural India – poor hand hygiene. Kids were at risk the most, so we decided to reach them first, making them aware about good hand hygiene. We were aiming for a behavioral change, so our solution had to be uncomplicated, cost-effective and at the same time certified safe for children to adopt.

Millions of children across rural India still don't have the habit of washing hands with soap before eating. Because they believe washing hands with water is enough. Since children do not take up new habits easily, Savlon, a brand associated with health and hygiene, needed to come up with an idea to help inculcate the habit of using soap when washing hands. Under Savlon’s ongoing school outreach initiative - ‘Healthy India Mission’, the task was to come up with a simple, low-cost solution that could be easily implemented in rural schools across the country.