The lack of supply in some Tanzanian schools has forced students to bring their own water to class every day. If they don’t bring a full water drum, they must return home. The short Water is not Life, finalist at the We Art Water Film Festival 5, showcases the harsh consequences of water stress for schoolchildren in many East African schools that depend on rainwater to ensure hygiene and nutrition for their students and teachers.

The winners of the fifth edition of the We Art Water Film Festival will be announced on Monday, World Water Day. The selected 45 short films compose a journey filled with revelations and emotions through our relationship with water. Each piece is a deep reflection about its value and can be extended to anyone around the world. With this Festival, the value of water expands to the art of communication, essential to ensure that everyone has access to it.

Women, who often suffer from exploitation, violence and neglect, play the most committed role in any crisis. Nowadays, those who suffer the lack of access to water and sanitation are also the most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The SDG 5 is in serious danger and we cannot tolerate this. No solution is possible without women being at the center of the response.

Water pollution due to illegal gold mines is a serious problem in Ghana, a country in which 70% of the diseases are caused by unsafe water. Galamsey is a phenomenon that prevents the economic growth of the country and pollutes rivers and aquifers to lethal levels. This is the case of the Ghanaian protagonist of the short film Nothing Has Changed, finalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 4.

The access to water or the lack thereof defines two types of homes: the comfortable ones, which allow a dignified and healthy life, and the ones which cannot provide their owners with anything remotely similar. Many of the 2.185 billion people with no safe access to water dream of having it at home. This is the case of the Cameroonian protagonist of the short film Utopia, finalist of the We Art Water Film Festival 3.

In Rwanda, one of Africa’s emerging economies, half of the population lacks access to water. In villages like Rugaramura, water supply disruptions last for weeks and its inhabitants have to fetch water outside the village. “Amazi”, one of the finalist short films of the We Art Water Film Festival 4, recreates an attitude that is the basis of the Rwandan people’s recovery: joy, a shared emotion that best integrates a community to face the future with confidence.

In the outlying slums of the capital of Sierra Leone, the population constantly increases in shacks without water or sanitation. Children bear the brunt: they miss school hours fetching water that often makes them sick. This is the reality of Kadija A. Bangura, shown in the micro-documentary Far Away, one of the finalists of the We Art Water Film Festival 4.

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.