One billion people in the world don’t have access to clean water. Two million people die each year from drinking contaminated water. 40 billion hours a year are wasted walking to collect water — an average of five hours per person per day. Women and children walk to collect water — usually in 25 litre containers, weighing 25 kilos.
Net result — kids don’t go to school, women can’t look after their families or maintain their crops.
One water set out to try to change these statistics — one person, one day at a time.
One water donates all its profits to providing free, clean water in developing countries in Africa.
One funds the building of unique roundabout powered playpumps. As children spin on them, water is pumped out of the ground into storage tanks which are connected to taps.
The playpumps are usually built in, or close to schools. Not only does this ensure a supply of willing volunteers, but it means that kids now go to school rather than wasting an average of 5 hours walking to collect water each day.
On recent trips we have discovered schools are now using excess water to irrigate the land and develop vegetable gardens — so children are now getting fed at school too.
The water tanks are enclosed by 6 x 4’ panels. Two panels are used for community messages, typically HIV AIDS, sanitation or education related. The other two are sold to advertisers, the revenue from which funds on-going maintenance.
One water set out to impact on one person, one family, one community, but in less than a year it has grown its distribution nationally (Co-Op, Waitrose, Morrisons, Tesco, Total, plus companies, schools, universities, etc) and now installs a playpump into a new community every two weeks.
Each retailer determines the price they buy the water at, and how much money they donate per bottle. When they have sold enough bottles to fund a roundabout (typically 70,000) they are encouraged to fly to Africa to oversee the installation. Total were so impressed with their experience they produced a film of it and distributed 40,000 copies through their forecourts. All customers have seen positive internal and external PR & CSR benefits as a result of their involvement.
Their goal is to take 1% of the bottled water market — this would fund the installation of a playpump every single day thereby dramatically changing people’s lives in Africa.
Playpumps are currently being installed in South Africa, Swaziland & Mozambique and will be installed in Malawi, Zambia, Uganda, Ethiopia and Lesotho, Kenya and Tanzania over the next four years.
One water has been profiled by The World Bank and the UN for their innovative approach and was recently awarded best presentation at the Global Greening in Industry Conference.
For further information contact:
Michael Colless
Global Ethics Limited – Australia
michael@global-ethics.com
www.onedifference.org