Raising awareness

There are two key dates in our WaterAid calendar where we encourage employees, friends and families to organise local fundraising and awareness activities.

World Water Day - 22 March

This is a global day of action and a chance to come together to remind the world that one in nine people don't yet have clean water close to home.

An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

World Water Day is an opportunity to learn more about water related issues, be inspired to tell others and take action to make a difference. Each year, UN-Water – the body coordinating the UN’s water and sanitation work - sets a theme relating to a current or future challenge.

Find out More.

World Toilet Day - 19 November

This is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.

In a bid to help break taboos around toilets and make sanitation for all a global development priority, the United Nations General Assembly designated 19 November as World Toilet Day.

A resolution, calling the day ‘Sanitation for All’ was adopted on 24 July 2013 and UN member states and stakeholders were urged to encourage behavioural change, policies to increase access to sanitation among the poor and an end to open-air defecation; something extremely harmful to public health. Sanitation, it was argued, concerns basic dignity and safety -  women should not have to risk rape harm or abuse just because they  lack access to toilets offering privacy.

The resolution also recognized the role society and non-governmental organisations play in raising awareness of this issue and called upon countries to better promote hygiene, provide basic sanitation services, undertake sewerage and wastewater treatments and reuse water as part of an integrated water management regime.

Find out More.