Unilever
Improving hygiene access for families
Unilever’s programme helps refugee children learn safe hygiene such as handwashing, and access soap.
©UNHCR/Antoine Tardy
Unilever’s support ensures more refugees can live with dignity through healthy hygiene habits and increased access to hygiene products, such as soap.
UNHCR first partnered with Unilever and the hygiene soap brand Lifebuoy in 2019, aiming to promote positive hygiene behaviours for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Our programme with Lifebuoy in Lebanon reached almost 30,000 refugee mothers and children through their ‘Mum’s Magic Hands’ handwashing education and awareness program.
In May 2020, UK for UNHCR joined the Hygiene Behaviour Change Coalition, created and led by Unilever and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).
With the support of Unilever and FCDO, UNHCR reduced the exposure of millions of refugees and host community members to COVID-19 through increased hygiene promotion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan, Bangladesh and Cameroon.
In response to the Ukraine emergency in 2022, Unilever once again stepped up, launching a global employee fundraising campaign, matched by the company, and donating just under one million personal hygiene products to refugees of the war.
More recently, Unilever donated large quantities of hygiene products to support UNHCR’s emergency response to the devastating earthquakes that struck Türkiye and Syria in 2023. This was in addition to another employee fundraising campaign, highlighting the company’s steadfast commitment to supporting all those forced to flee.