WASH Campaign

WASH activities focus on advocating sanitation, hygiene and safe water practices, promoting appropriate technologies such as rainwater harvesting and other people-centred initiatives, and through holding public rallies, debates and multi-stakeholder dialogues, signing petitions, staging exhibitions, competitions, folk theatre presentations and other public awareness activities, as well as interpersonal communication.

Another emphasis of the campaign is the organisation of activities for collating, distilling, and abstracting science-based knowledge for wider audiences beyond technical professionals. Information about people's own initiatives and field experiences, as well as innovative practices by communities in finding solutions to sanitation-related problems, is collected and exchanged.

One of the key advocacy tools for the campaign will be a "People's Report" on sanitation and hygiene to be published by the Collaborative Council and its partners as a contribution to the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2002.

WASH also works to build collaborations across sectors and disciplines, like the media. Strategies to partner with the media include outreach and regular contacts with journalists and their associations, press conferences and briefings, internet-based media, dissemination of materials, co-productions on video news releases, radio and TV documentaries, and training of both experts and journalists to engender responsible and accurate coverage of water and sanitation issues.

Health, Women, Children.

Despite modern medical advances, some 1.1 billion people worldwide have no access to a safe water supply; 2.4 billion people have no access to adequate sanitation facilities. The consequences of this problem disproportionately impact girls and women. Where there are no latrines girls commonly avoid school; without latrines women and girls must wait until dark to defecate, exposing themselves to harassment and sexual assault. Diarrhoea resulting from poor sanitation and hygiene is responsible for the death of more than two million impoverished children each year. Providing access to sanitation facilities, though relatively inexpensive, will halve the death toll. Despite laudable achievements by the sector during the International Decade for Water Supply and Sanitation (1981-1990) to meet these basic needs, there remains a tremendous backlog in terms of the billions of unserved people.

Mandated by a United Nations resolution in 1990 to maintain the momentum of the International Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade, the mission of the WSSCC is "to accelerate the achievement of sustainable water, sanitation and waste management services to all people, with special attention to the unserved poor, by enhancing collaboration among developing countries and external support agencies and through concerted action programmes."

The campaign was launched during the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, where the Minister of Health joined the Chair of the WSSCC and other officials in a "handwashing" ceremony. This symbolised the fact that the simple, hygienic act of handwashing with water, or even ash, after going to the toilet, can cut diseases by one third and save many lives from diarrhoea and other preventable diseases.

WSSCC was the Sulabh Sanitation Movement's "Global Sanitation Award" recipient for 2003. The award consists of a gold trophy, a gold medal, a citation, and a cheque for US$50,000. The award is given to a deserving organisation in recognition of its role in the work in the areas of hygiene, environmental sanitation, and social justice. The award will be presented by Sulabh to WSSCC at an international event in 2004.

In addition, in May 2003, WSSCC received the "Leadership Award" from the United Nations Association of Greater Boston (UNAGB) on the basis of its global advocacy and people-centred focus in promoting water, sanitation, and hygiene for underserved populations in the developing world.