A new project in Sierra Leone shows us the importance of ensuring water and sanitation in schools to reverse the impoverishment of neglected rural areas. Passing on to students the ability to manage the facilities turns them into educational agents in their communities, ensures sustainability, and gives them an empowered future.

Rain, snow, fog, hurricanes, mangroves, semi-desert, forests… In the La Guajira peninsula, the Wayuu culture has been forged in almost all scenarios and treasures a close and vital relationship with water. Mining, global warming, and neglect threaten the “children of the rain god and Mother Earth.” The short film The children of the rain, afinalist at the We Art Water Film Festival, offers us a beautiful image of their spiritual relationship with water. 

Leonardo da Vinci once wrote that water is the blood of the Earth and rivers its veins. It is perhaps the best metaphor ever written about water. Nothing is more linked to life than river water: life for us and life for nature. Rivers that have lost the life within them are the worst symptom of the Earth's health. We have selected five short films in which the We Art Water Film Festival participants give extraordinary testimony.

More than 340,000 children die each year from diarrhea. In addition to unsafe water, poor sanitation and hygiene practices, there is a lack of awareness of the health risks associated with these deficiencies. The short film Thought of Water, afinalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 5, explains one of the most common causes: children share the water of a pond with animals and their own feces. The eradication of childhood diarrhea will be a sure sign of the achievement of SDG 6.

In Nepal, only 15% of the rural population has access to a safe water source in their homes. The short film Homework, a finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, shows how Sumnima, a village school student, cannot complete her homework because she has to fetch water for her family. All this in a country whose mountains make it the second most water-abundant country on Earth. Nepal is fighting to end this paradox.   

In many rural communities in El Salvador, poor governance, industrial overexploitation, and pollution leave them without access to water. The short film Private Waters, a finalist of the fifth edition of the We Art Water Film Festival, shows how the El Rodeo community has organized itself to guarantee its survival and health.

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.

The moorlands are home to pristine water and natural balance. They are also of immeasurable cultural value, as they are the backbone of an intense and profound relationship with nature and water. Many moorlands are at risk. The Sumapaz, in Colombia, is one of them. In El espíritu del agua (The spirit of water), Diana Moreno, finalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 5, shows us how the recovery of the ancestral culture can be the most powerful action to save them.