Hilton and Sundara Join Hands to Impact Underserved Communities

ACCORDING TO the World Health Organisation, pneumonia and diarrhoea are the top two causes of mortality among children worldwide. Together, these diseases account for nearly 30% of deaths of children who are less than five years old and lead to the loss of 2 million young lives each year. In India, 50% of malnutrition cases is associated with repeated diarrhoea or intestinal worm infections due to unsafe water, poor sanitation or hygiene. Risks to these preventable diseases can be mitigated by observing good hygiene practices including washing of hands with soap.

Hilton and non-profit organisation Sundara  announced that they have been working together to counter these causes and positively impact people in the communities in Mumbai through their soap recycling partnership which began in July 2016. The three-minute video sheds light on how local communities have benefited from the program.

Each month Sundara works with partners including Hilton - its largest hospitality partner in India – to deliver soap and hygiene trainings to over 4,000 children and families in Mumbai. The NGO also conduct similar trainings regularly conducted for adults and children at medical centres in the Kalwa slums. Participating Hilton hotels collect partially used soap from guest rooms and donate them to Sundara who in turn sanitizes and recycles the soap, and finally delivers the new soap bars to local communities, alongside the hygiene trainings.

 Sharing her delight on this initiative, Erin Zaikis, founder of Sundara, said, “For years now, Sundara along with its partners has been working hard to train on hand hygiene awareness, thereby reducing preventable diseases that are caused by poor hygiene conditions. We try to bring in the idea of shared responsibility for this problem by involving community members and corporations at every level of our work. Hilton has been such a supportive partner from the start and has helped us grow our impact immensely as a part of their sustainability efforts.”

On Hilton’s partnership with Sundara, Andre A. Gomez, head of operations - India, Hilton, said, “Hilton’s participation in soap recycling supports our global corporate responsibility strategy, Travel with Purpose, to preserve our environment and strengthen the communities in which we live, work and travel. We now have nine Hilton hotels in India recovering and donating soap on a regular basis, and through our partnership with Sundara, we aim to make a positive impact in people’s lives by promoting hygiene and community health, while reducing the environmental impact of soap waste.”