Pears Safe Hands

Each year, hundreds of thousands of sick children are taken care of completely free of charge through Sri Lanka’s national network of government-run hospitals. We at Unilever felt that we should do our bit to help and in 2002 Pears adopted as part of its social mission, a special initiative to improve the facilities at maternity, neonatal and paediatric wards at government-run hospitals that provide medical care for infants and children, particularly those from low income families.

Pears Safe Hands Fund

Unilever Sri Lanka began to channel 25 cents for every product sold into a fund set aside for this purpose, and soon there was enough to get the project started. In October of the same year, Pears Safe Hands completed the equipping and refurbishment of the Emergency Treatment Centre and Nebulisation unit of the Lady Ridgeway Children’s Hospital in Colombo.

Since then, similar projects have been carried out at fourteen hospitals around the country, based on the recommendations of the Sri Lanka College of Paediatricians. So far 27.5 million rupees has been collected through the fund, helping to provide an estimated one million infants, children and mothers with better equipped and more cheerful wards in which to receive treatment and recuperate from illness.

Helping hands

As the project moved from hospital to hospital, groups of volunteers from Unilever Sri Lanka have also become involved and, often together with members of the local community, have undertaken to spruce up other areas of the hospital such as the children’s play areas, adding that extra dimension of personal involvement to the project.