March 22nd - World Water Day

[Al-khiyal]

Indus river, Pakistan: The river has been threatened by over-extraction and climate change says WWF


Ardales, Spain: Guadalhorce reservoir shows a very low water level


Nairobi, Kenya: A Turkana woman queues for water at an NGO funded borehole


Hyderabad, India: A boy walks across the parched bed of a pond


Manila, Philippines: Rows of shanties contribute to the pollution of an inland river.
A recent report released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the global development network of the United Nations, noted that more than 10 million Filipinos have no access to safe drinking water, while more than 21 million lack basic sanitation


Nimburg, Germany: A couple walks through the dried-out riverbed of the Dreisam river. A permanent drought has dried out parts of the river between March and Riegel


Vardim island, Bulgaria: Fisherman pulling net in his boat. The Vardim island on the Danube is located at 10 km east from the town of Svishtov (situated on a high terrace on the right bank of the Danube river). According to WWF the Danube is under threat from shipping


Zeerust, South Africa: Children play on a roundabout located on top of a bore hole which stretches more than 50 metres towards the earth's core. The water is pumped to the surface by simplistic engineering powered by the motion of the children's spinning


Wajir, Kenya:
A pastoralist walks past carcasses in the drought stricken province in this February 2006 photograph


River Pang, England: In April 2006 water levels were so low that parts of the river course dried up


Guangxi province, China: Girls play on parched land.
Last year a severe drought left more than 2.4 million people short of drinking water


Hyderabad, India: Women struggle through a crowd to reach a mobile water tanker in a slum area


Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya: One of thousands of dead flamingos on the dry lake bed. The number of flamingoes living on the lake had declined dramatically, a number of factors have been blamed including the receding waters of the lake, and pollution


Chongqing, China: A nearly dried-up area of the Jialing river. The water levels of the country's major rivers, Yangtze, Jialing and Yellow River, reached nearly record lows due to droughts caused by unusually warm temperatures which left nearly 5 million people facing drinking water shortages


Manila, Philippines: A protester shouts slogans during a demonstration to mark World Water Day.
Protesters called for an end to the privatised water supply service which allows companies to raise fees, leaving urban poor communities unable to afford access to clean water

[Al-khiyal]

The man behind One bottled water today urged consumers to switch to his brand, saying that by doing so they could help quench the thirst of communities in Africa.

Speaking on World Water Day, Duncan Goose, the founder and managing director of One bottled water said buying his product would help provide clean drinking water in African villages.

All of the profits from One bottled water go to the group PlayPumps International, which buys pumps in Africa that double as merry-go-rounds for children and are powered as they play.

Since One was launched at Live8 in July 2005, it has helped install 899 roundabout pumps in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia - enough to supply 1.2 million people with clean drinking water.

The water is sold in supermarkets including Tesco, Waitrose and Morrisons. A 500ml bottle of One still water retails in Tesco for 45p, roughly the same as Evian and Highland Spring.

Now the company has joined forces with Mark Malloch Brown, a former deputy secretary-general of the United Nations, to persuade more people who currently buy bottled water to switch to One.

The ultimate aim is to achieve the UN Millennium Development goal of halving water scarcity in Africa by 2015, by providing households with a minimum of 20 litres per person per day as a basic legislated right.

"The water market is an absolutely huge market in the UK, worth £1.5 bn," says Goose.

"When we started we thought it would be great to raise enough money to install just one pump. Now we're installing one every 14 days and by the summer it will be one every 11 days.

"People have recognised that water is water; why wouldn't you opt to buy a brand that changes people's lives?"

Diseases

Goose set up One, and its parent company Global Ethics, after hearing that more than 1 billion people - a sixth of the world's population - live without clean water.

In some communities people have to walk five hours a day to fetch water, which prevents them from being able to work or go to school, and keeps them in poverty. Two million people each year die from diseases related to unsafe water, including 1.8 million children from diarrhoea.

"Rather than try to chase big donations, this is a really clever way to get a lot of people to donate money to a charity without really thinking about it," says Trevor Field, marketing director of Roundabout Outdoor, which manufactures the water pumps. "All you do is buy a bottle of water and you know you're doing the right thing."

The One brand has attracted the attention of academics at the University of Cardiff who are using it as a case study for students on a business and sustainability course.

The course director, Professor Ken Peattie, explains: "With most cases of 'cause-related' marketing you have a big company such as Heinz or Proctor and Gamble putting some of their marketing muscle behind a big cause. However, Global Ethics was specifically set up as a business to do social good, and then successfully broke into a market dominated by big players.

"You could say Goose is the Richard Branson of social entrepreneurship."

Springs and roundabouts

[Al-khiyal]

World Water Day - 22nd March 2007

[Bent_Bladi]

ya latif... that's so scary. And i heard this year is going to be even drier... Allah yistor

[amalgamate]

"Nairobi, Kenya: A Turkana woman queues for water at an NGO funded borehole"

i was debating whether it was a woman or not.. omg that person does not look like a woman.

such extreme weathers... my allah.

[Cheba_Mami]

For those who are interested:
World Water Day - World Water Day

See also previously held World Water Days.