World Water Day!
What is World Water Day?
World Water Day is celebrated annually on March 22nd. The United Nations General Assembly established World Water day in 1993 with the hopes of creating awareness about a natural resource that is crucial to every person’s life. Often taken for granted, water access and purification create daily threats to the health, education system, and economic situation of communities throughout the world. Every year, UN-Water – the entity responsible for the UN’s work on sanitation and water – creates an engagement campaign for World Water Day that relates to a specific global challenge. This year, the International Labour Organization (ILO) is coordinating the campaign. Therefore, World Water Day 2016 has focus on the issues surrounding labor and water related sectors.
World Water Day is an opportunity to take action, create awareness, and address areas of the world where water has never been taken for granted. For those fortunate enough to have consistent access to clean water, we should also use this day as a reminder to seek out ways to limit water waste in our own daily lives.
How is PureMadi supporting World Water Day?
Marta collects water from the Mukondeni Factory borehole that PureMadi installed. Boreholes are the primary source of water for villagers, who often have to walk miles to collect it. Using PureMadi filters, a family is ensured safe drinking water.
PureMadi attempts to approach every day like it’s World Water Day. This is a cause near and dear to our heart because it embodies PureMadi’s entire mission: to prevent waterborne diseases through educating, training, and empowering resource-limited communities to produce and distribute an innovative point-of-use water treatment technology.
PureMadi builds ceramic water filter factories that employ local people so that their communities become a part of the sustainable solution to provide access to clean water. PureMadi supports World Water Day’s focus on labor in 2016 and acknowledges that it is a crucial component to addressing the issue. The women working at the Mukondeni Pottery Cooperative joined forces with PureMadi five years ago to literally build our first factory in Ha-Mashamba, South Africa, from the ground up. Since then, the potters are responsible for the factory’s daily operations and creation of filters. With their partnership, PureMadi has been able to distribute over a 2,000 filters to surrounding communities. Each of the women have a filter in their own home and spread awareness to friends and family.
PureMadi is working in partnership with Khulisa Social Solutions – a South African non-governmental organization – and several members of a community Dertig near Hammanskraal, South Africa, to build a second filter facility. We are employing the same approach by making local involvement and labor a critical component to the facility’s success. Additionally, PureMadi and our South African partners and working on ways to create educational programs that will increase awareness about the importance of clean water. In this way, PureMadi strives to address the intricacies of economy, education, and health when it comes to improving communities’ access to clean water.
How can YOU support World Water Day?
We all share a responsibility when it comes to water. Whether it be working to reduce your own personal water waste or taking action to help someone’s situation in place where access to water is anything but a given. Here are three ways you can support World Water Day:
1. Raise awareness
Spread awareness of World Water Day on social media! Educate friends/family/coworkers about the day and how they can take part! Visit the UN site for ready-to-use Facebook and twitter infographics!
2. Fundraise and donate to a water cause
Start your own initiatives or fundraising to focus on a water related issue that inspires you!
3. Donate to PureMadi
Consider donating to PureMadi and providing a family with a water filter in South Africa. Approximately $25 will buy a filter for a family in need.