The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Ghana has launched a project dubbed Tippy Tap at Kpedze Anoe in the Volta Region to instill hand-washing habit in residents.

The project provides an opportunity for people in communities with no running water to wash their hands.

The Tippy Tap is a simple device made up of assembled local materials namely sticks, string and a gallon of water. It is powered by a foot lever and it is aimed at reducing chances of bacteria transmission as the user touches the soap.

Speaking to Joy News as the world marks the 6th Global Handwashing Day, UNICEF's Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), David Duncan said they are committed to bringing about behavioral change in the way Ghanaians perceive handwashing. The changes, he disclosed would take place in the schools followed by the communities.

He said: ''When hand washing becomes a habit it becomes normal and  you just do it without thinking. It becomes routine particularly, with children, if you can make it a habit among children, it becomes something they keep for the rest of their lives and they pass it on to their children."

UNICEF has noted diarrhoea remains the second largest cause of under-five years mortality globally affecting 1.7 billion children and killing 600,000 of them each year.

Also, the disease is associated with a high risk of stunting (low weight for age and developmental delay) which affects the society.

The UN agency has said one of the simplest and most inexpensive barriers to infection is handwashing with soap, saying it has a strategy to address that.

In a speech read on her behalf, Volta Regional Minister, Helen Adjoa Ntosso was optimistic the project would help in the improvement of the hygiene of the people and reduce child mortality in the various communities in the Region and Ghana as a whole.

''All Municipal and District Assemblies in the Region would continue to collaborate with education and health institutions within their assemblies to promote activities as part of government's efforts to provide quality health services to our citizens," she said.

As part of the launch, school children were taken through the process of constructing a simple Tippy Tap afterward and the entire residents taught how to operate the device.