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.

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.

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.

Toilets define a dual scope of responsibility: we must bring them to everyone and we must use them correctly. Having one is a demand for health, dignity and hope for economic development for more than 4.2 billion people. Those who already have one are obliged to a responsible use, essential for the proper functioning of the water cycle and a key factor for the adaptation to climate change.  

Covid-19 deepens the drama of Venezuelan migrants in northern Brazil. The flow of those who leave their homes fleeing from poverty does not end and the pandemic has worsened the hardness and uncertainty of their exodus. The We Are Water Foundation has started a new project to provide basic handwashing facilities and hygiene training to those who survive in the worst conditions and to the citizens that take them in.

A new project of the Foundation brings water, sanitation and hygiene to Central American migrants who are crammed into unhealthy shelters in Mexico. They flee from poverty and violence and are trapped by politics and the pandemic.  

Addressing awareness of nature and access to water and hygiene in the most forgotten areas of Madagascar is one of the objectives of the Foundation’s new project. The largest island in Africa presents one of the worst hygiene rates in the world, which together with the pandemic creates an alarming health situation. Its extraordinary biodiversity also deteriorates with deforestation and shows a relationship with poverty that must be reversed.

A new project of the Foundation promotes the access to water and hygiene in schools in Morocco’s most impoverished areas. The health and economic crisis unleashed by Covid-19 threatens the sustainable development of Magreb, one of the areas in the world most affected by desertification caused by climate change. The solidarity of its population is its strength.