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Help us fight coronavirus

Hygiene is key for saving lives.

Help us fight coronavirus

Our work is needed more than ever where water and sanitation are lacking.

The COVID-19 pandemic especially threatens the 3 billion people who do not have access to adequate handwashing facilities with soap and water in their homes.

We at the Foundation stand side by side with those most vulnerable to this dramatic pandemic, that is why we are working in new projects, encouraging education and good hygiene practices, providing facilities and applying our expertise in communities where we have already guaranteed the access to water and sanitation to more than 700,000 people.

Personal hygiene, based on handwashing, is and continues to be an essential factor to eradicate epidemics like diarrhea or pneumonia, which cause the death of more than 800 children per day in the world’s most disadvantaged communities. And right now it is a fundamental tool that, together with the social distance, will allow us to fight COVID-19.

We need to do even more now!

The coronavirus pandemic is a new lethal factor in these poor regions with hardly any health resources.

Your help counts!

This is how we help

We collaborate with NGOs, foundations and United Nations agencies specialized in developing aid programs in the areas of the world most affected by lack of water and sanitation.

COVID-19

We keep you informed of the problems and their solutions.

sahrawi refugee

Sahrawi refugees: three generations without access to water

The Sahrawi refugees who have been living in the Algerian desert for 46 years continue to face an uncertain future. The Spanish government’s recent policy shift has rescued one of the world’s longest-running humanitarian crises from oblivion. The short 22nd of April by Cesare Maglioni, finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, shows how difficult it is to wash one’s hands in Smara, one of the five camps that host them, where a daily struggle for water, malnutrition, and hygiene is fought.

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March 8th international women's day

For women, with women

No path to sustainability is possible if women are not the focus of any actions. The Agenda 2030 will not be achieved without the participation of each and every woman in the world free from the injustices that oppress them. The access to water and sanitation reveals some of the most excruciating inequalities, which are often little known. We know that much remains to be done, but the path is becoming clearer: with them and for them. Here are some of the facts as of today.

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portada madagascar

Madagascar: when “red wind” means hunger

Africa’s largest island is facing a serious humanitarian emergency. Drought and sand storms have unleashed one of the worst food crises in the history of a country with endemic deficiencies in water infrastructures and with a governance that is incapable of adequately managing the territory. The short film Where to go?, finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, provides direct evidence of a crisis that threatens to kill more than a million people.  

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kiberia Nairobi

Kibera, the slum as a symptom

Migration due to poverty, violence and neglect has led to the overcrowding of hundreds of thousands of people within a few kilometers of the center of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital. The causes of the creation of slums follow a universal pattern that show us where to find the shortcomings of the universal justice we wish to create. The short filmRaindrops, by Stephen Okoth, finalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 5, recreates a real common story in Kibera and in all marginal neighborhoods around the world.

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Who will manage water data?

Will algorithms and big data be able to control the 42,000 km3of usable fresh water all around the world? Will they be able to monitor its efficient use worldwide? Will they guarantee universal access to water? Will they create inequalities in decision-making to face the climate crisis? These are not science-fiction questions; in the smart world that is already underway, they point towards a future that is the goal of the current technological development based on big data and artificial intelligence.

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woman smiling

2021: everyone’s benefit is ours, and our benefit is everyone’s

In all activities carried out during this hard year, we have been faced with human suffering, but we have also found hope. Hope generated by the knowledge of being understood and helped; the one generated by the enthusiasm and generosity of the institutions we collaborate with. These have redoubled their efforts despite all difficulties and deserve our admiration and gratitude. We will continue to be there, collaborating to overcome them, because we share the conviction that solidarity is a never ending asset.

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girls in class

With sanitation, education will be possible

The Foundation’s projects have provided water, sanitation and hygiene to more than 205,000 students and teachers in the most neglected regions of the world. The experience obtained in nine of the most disadvantaged countries corroborates the importance of schools as drivers of the development of hygiene and social justice. Now more than ever due to the pandemic, drinking water and adequate facilities are the base of the success of any educational goal. Mankind needs clean and healthy schools. Without them, no other SDG will be fully attained.

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machu-pichu peru

Peruvian valleys, valleys for the world

Peru is one of the countries with the greatest water contrasts. The sustainable development of its enormous farming potential depends on the adequate management of water and the territory. To achieve this, the country has the richness of the ancestral tradition that most cared for water as the main link to the land: the Incan culture. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of recovering this farming model based on the understanding of the laws of nature and their compliance.

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Smart Reaction: the opportunity is here and now

Architecture and the building and tourism industries are key elements for the attainment of the SDGs. They must be a fundamental part of the model that will lead us to attain them and their international influence in the generation of social awareness is decisive. The “Smart Water Smart Reaction” debate showed there are plenty of ideas and initiatives in Mexico, Peru and Spain. The pandemic has strengthened the connecting thread of water as source of inspiration to overcome the global challenge we face and to appreciate the opportunities that appear before us.

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modern building

Smart Water, Smart Reaction: towards collective intelligence

Smart Water extends its discussion forum to make the most of the opportunities offered by the profound change we are experiencing. Smart Reaction will help create a new model that will allow us to effectively attain sustainable development. Through water, a smart reaction is based on dialogue and cooperation to overcome the survival and justice challenge humanity is facing. The world that designs, creates and builds living spaces must evolve even more towards collective intelligence, which will face all problems and will include all those who experience them.

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SDGs and the pandemic. Not everything goes wrong

Despite the human and economic crisis posed by Covid-19, the attainment of the SDGs must not stop and needs to be resumed with renewed momentum. Governments and companies rally to avoid stopping the fight against climate change and move towards a sustainable economy. The indicators of the status of SDG 6, which refers to water and sanitation, require investments demanded by society, increasingly aware of the need to protect the environment.

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african woman carrying water

A society without stigmas, without segregation, with solidarity

The fear of coronavirus infection has revealed the social scourge of stigma. Some health professionals and other groups that have been at the frontline with their work have suffered social rejection. This is an attitude that, beyond the pandemic, affects the poorest and most discriminated people, as is often the case in the world of access to water and sanitation. We must end this burden to attain the Sustainable Development Goals. Viruses, like water, know no borders, ethnicities or social classes.

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children in burkina faso

Childhood malnutrition, the unbearable reverse of the pandemic

Covid -19 has shot to pieces all aid programs against global childhood malnutrition. The situation of extreme vulnerability in which millions of children in the poorest regions have been left is a collateral emergency to that of the virus which has already turned into a terrible humanitarian crisis. The difficulty of access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation always goes hand in hand with abandoned and malnourished children. The international reaction has already started and aid projects are greatly increasing. Together we will succeed.

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letrinas

There is no sanitation without sustainability

What is the ideal location to build a latrine? How should it be ventilated? How to make it easy for children to use it? And what about the use by women? Which materials should be used? The answers vary depending on the culture, climate and training of users. These are factors that define the sustainability of sanitation where it is most needed: in the fight against open defecation. The Foundation’s expertise will be a guideline in Burkina Faso.

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World Vision Nicaragua

Clean water for hygiene and education in Nicaragua

A new project of the Foundation helps the most vulnerable schoolchildren to effectively fight Covid-19. In Nicaragua, where the government is heavily criticized for the way it has dealt with the pandemic, there is a serious lack of access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene in many schools. More than five hundred schoolchildren and some 3,200 inhabitants of the municipalities of Yalí and San Lorenzo are being empowered to face infections.

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With nature not against it

With nature, not against it

Beyond human tragedy, COVID-19 poses a reflection on how we relate to each other and to nature. And it leads us to another vision of the problems that beset the human species. The new society that is emerging from the crisis will have to integrate health emergencies into a more global vision with the values of proportionality and cohesion that are characteristic of the culture of the green economy. The path towards the SDGs must be aware of the fact that a pollution-free and ecologically balanced planet is synonymous with health.

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child smiling

The comprehensive water cycle: guarantee, privilege and need

Confidence in the safety and efficiency of the comprehensive water cycle has been reinforced during the Covid-19 pandemic, among those citizens who are guaranteed it. Most of them now have a better understanding of a key service that ensures their well-being. This knowledge should serve to reflect on the situation of the 2.1 billion people who do not have running water in their homes. The crisis unleashed by the pandemic threatens the plans of many countries with regard to the universal implementation of access to water and sanitation. Humanity cannot afford it.

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