Deadly message bottled up

22/03/2007

The plight of people who face the daily struggle of coping without basic human rights is to be highlighted by a dirty message in a bottle this week.

 

More than one billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and Northumbrian Water is supporting WaterAid’s campaign to highlight this astonishing fact on World Water Day – Thursday March 22.

 

WaterAid, Northumbrian Water’s adopted international charity, provides clean, safe water, sanitation and hygiene education to some of the world’s poorest people in Africa and Asia.

 

The life-changing charity’s campaign, branded ‘Would you drink this water?’, will raise awareness of the work that it is doing to help people escape the stranglehold of disease and poverty caused by the lack of safe water and sanitation.

 

Messages in the bottle:

 

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• More than one billion people don’t have safe, clean water to drink.

   

• More than two billion people don’t have access to safe sanitation.

   

• 5000 children die every day from water-related diseases.

   

• Water-related disease is the second biggest killer of children worldwide.

   

• 443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related diseases.

   

• People in the North East each use 150 litres of water a day – compared to Africa and Asia where people use only ten litres of water each day for drinking, washing and cooking - this is the same amount used in the North East to flush a toilet once!

   

• Households in rural Africa spend an average of 26% of their time collecting water and it is generally women and children who are burdened with the task.

The campaign will hopefully encourage people in the North East, who are very fortunate to have access to excellent quality water at the turn of a tap, to help save lives. It costs only £15.00, the cost of a music CD, to provide a child with clean, safe water and sanitation for life.

 

Cara Hall from Northumbrian Water said: "People in the North East don’t have to worry about where their next glass of clean, safe water will come from or that they don’t have somewhere private and safe to go to the toilet.

 

"People in the developing world have to walk miles and miles to collect water that they know will harm and even kill their family and raw sewage is strewn across streets and villages. I couldn’t cope living like that. I urge people to help make a difference to peoples’ lives – it does not require a lot of effort but will have a huge positive impact."

 

There are many ways people can get involved with the work that WaterAid is doing for World Water Day, including donating an hour of their salary to save someone’s life or signing a postcard to join the new campaign calling for sanitation and water for all - www.endwaterpoverty.org.

 

For more information about WaterAid or to make a donation Northumbrian Water customers can contact Julie Wilson on 0191 301 6713 or julie.wilson@nwl.co.uk