In many areas of Russia, plenty of villages are left without water due to the destruction of aquifers. This is the case of one of the 60 families of Beriózovski, narrated in the micro documentary SNOW, one of the finalists of the We Art Water Film Festival 4. For them snow is the safest water source.

Water will always be there, but not water security. It is a more enveloping concept that allows experts to better communicate the complexity of the urban water cycle to citizens, making them participate in its management model, in its benefits and risks. Well informed users enable the creation of a context with a participatory and transparent governance in which we all feel involved. Water security goes beyond the simple access to water and implies constant work.

The awareness of the importance of water and sanitation moves forward. The impact of the World Water Day events organized by the Foundation all around the world proves that the civil society is increasingly taking up the challenge for humanity that no one is left behind: to achieve effective, global and inclusive governance.

Around fifty thousand women in Haiderpur will overcome the hygienic difficulties of menstruation, and many more have found work opportunities. Also more than 660 families in Bhiwadi can now avoid open defecation. Some testimonies of women benefitting from the projects of the Foundation in India show the importance of working for gender equality throughout the entire country.

Those who are invisible in the censuses, discriminated women, the inhabitants of the most vulnerable slums, all those ruined by droughts, those surrounded by polluted water, those on the other side of the technological barrier and those with no access to education on hygiene; all these population groups risk being excluded of the attainment of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation.

Our relationship with water goes beyond the survival of our body, beyond dignity and justice, it is spiritual. H₂O, the short film by the Bangladeshi Ahmmed Raihan, one of the finalists of the We Art Water Film Festival 4, reflects how water has been an element that for thousands of years has united us all as a symbol of transformation and a metaphor of an ethical lifestyle.

On World Women’s Day it is vital to point out that adult and young women and girls bear the brunt of the more than 2.1 billion people with no access to clean water and the 2.4 billion that lack adequate sanitation. Regardless of the injustice this implies, it is not possible to imagine a sustainable planet with this scourge of inequality.

The exhibition “The Hidden Life of Water” at the Roca Lisboa Gallery showcases what we often fail to see from the work done by the We Are Water Foundation in its aid projects all around the world.