Is it possible to live surrounded by contaminated water? Some people are doing it, like the poorest inhabitants of the banks of the Musi River, in India. Waste water affects their health and degrades their standard of living. The riverside dwellers survive this unacceptable situation waiting for alternatives.

Kinene, a nine-year-old boy living along the shore of Lake Victoria, needs clean water to wash fish with her mother. This is the only source of income of his family, a family that, as most of the 30 million people living on the largest lake in Africa, suffers the consequences of its high level of pollution.

The campaign for the right of women to water access has achieved its greatest international exposure in its first anniversary. It has been the core idea of numerous activities carried out by the We Are Water Foundation to commemorate World Water Day 2017

The treatment of waste water brings to light the fundamental problem of the water cycle management in the industrialised world. The basic problem is identical in the poorest areas but the social consequences are catastrophic. The conclusions of the experts gathered at the debate “Reuse of water, Are we ready?” organised by the We Are Water Foundation, point to the action of citizens that are well informed of the integral water cycle. There is a great deal at stake.

For over 10.000 years we have coexisted with an unavoidable attribute of our civilization: sewage, human waste that even today continues to be lethal for millions of people. A brief review of a history that demystifies us.

Waste water, the theme of this year´s World Water Day, is a scourge we cannot afford. Its treatment and reuse is a vital factor that needs to reach every corner of the world, as it is lethal for millions of people, it obstructs the access to water for the poor and it contaminates rivers, aquifers and oceans. Four experts will discuss about this challenge that needs to be faced inevitably at the round table organised by the We Are Water Foundation on the 22^nd March.

Sewage has turned Makoko, in Nigeria, into one of the most miserable neighbourhoods in the world. The former “Nigerian Venice” suffers the consequences of pollution and the lack of sanitation, but unique projects of renovation and adaptability to climate change are arising from its putrid waters.

Can we imagine a sustainable world with the urban planning and architecture we have developed until now? The crisis of water and sanitation leads us to believe we cannot, and this is causing a radical change in the way we conceive, build and plan the houses and cities we live in. The new architecture rises as a discipline of hope.