It couldn’t be simpler. Go to oneweekforwater.org and sign up to donate your Facebook and Twitter status for World Water Week. When you donate your online status, ONE and Water.org will post updates on your Facebook and/or Twitter pages, change your profile picture and even update your background to raise awareness about water and sanitation.

Don’t miss the chance join thousands in celebrating clean, safe water all next week. Head to oneweekforwater.org and sign up today!

The 2010 World Water Day coalition will be hosting an event called “Uniting for Safe Water and Sanitation” at the National Geographic Society building in DC. Among the speakers will be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Maria Otero, Representative Earl Blumenauer, and others. The even takes place on March 22, and you can read more about it here.

Every year, on March 22, the world gathers on World Water Day to raise awareness, present solutions, and demand more commitment from governments to put an end to the world’s water crisis. This year, join me as a host of organizations–including ONE, CARE, Catholic Relief Services and Water.org–celebrate World Water Day in a variety of exciting ways.

On Monday, March 22, don’t miss a conversation in Washington DC with high-level officials from the US government, corporations and NGOs at “Americans Doing Our Part,” an event hosted by Water Advocates and the National Geographic Society. On Tuesday, March 23, help lobby for clean water on World Water Advocacy Day–or spend your lunch break making a stand for sanitation by joining the attempt to create the World’s Longest Toilet Queue. But don’t panic if you can’t make it to D.C. You still can take action wherever you are by writing your Representative or spreading the word on Facebook and Twitter. So please join us in some way. We can only succeed if we act as ONE.

To find out how you can get involved, visit www.waterday.org.

So in commemoration of International Women’s Day this week, I want to pay tribute to the resiliency of these women, and highlight the collective possibility they embody — if freed from the back-breaking and time-consuming burden of collecting water.

Providing women with access to a nearby source of clean water frees up their days to earn an income or engage in other more productive activities – which can help significantly elevate their status in the community.

Nakwetikya is a great example of this. As part of a committee formed to look after a well supported by WaterAid in Ndedo, Tanzania, she has witnessed a dramatic shift in attitudes toward women in her community:

“Before we formed a [water] committee and prepared ourselves as a community, men just saw women as animals. I think they thought of us as bats flapping around them. They had no respect for us and no one would allow you to speak or listen to what you had to say. When I stand up now in a group I am not an animal. I am a woman with a valid opinion. We have been encouraged and trained and the whole community has learned to understand us.”

You can read more stories like Nakwetikya’s at http://action.globalwaterchallenge.org/womensday.

-Tanvi Nagpal, Director of Water and Sanitation Initiatives, Global Water Challenge

On Tuesday, October 13th, I had to get up at 5:15 a.m. To be clear, that’s not my normal wake-up time. It’s more my idea of slow torture. But that morning something important was happening. The organization I work for, Global Water Challenge, was going to be announcing its partnership with Live Earth and Dow to combat the drinking water crisis. I was excited because the Dow Live Earth Run for Water benefiting Global Water Challenge will be the largest event ever of its kind — on the scale needed to deal with the crisis. On April 18th, 2010, thousands of people around the world will participate in 6 km run/walks (the average distance many women and children walk every day to secure water), followed by featuring concerts and water education activities.

I wasn’t the only one up early on Tuesday — the students at Mott Hall Science and Technology Academy were also making their way over to The Early Show to represent kids all over the world. The students have committed to participate in the global event on April 18th and were helping us tell the world about the event by appearing on The Early Show. It was cold, but the kids from Mott Hall realized that there were kids like them all over the world who didn’t have water in their schools. In fact, half of the world’s schools lack access to clean drinking water and safe sanitation.

The official press conference was later that day at the Chelsea Piers in New York. GWC President Paul Faeth was joined on stage by Jessica Biel, Alexandra Cousteau, Pete Wentz and others to talk about how important the drinking water issue is around the world. In this day and age, there are still close to a billion people who lack access to clean water. Our hope is that the Dow Live Earth Run for Water will create a tipping point in the water crisis.

Funds raised in the U.S. will go to water and sanitation projects around the world that GWC is supporting. Every person who runs/walk on April 18th is not only helping by providing funding for these projects, but also by showing their commitment to the issue, and bring this issue to the forefront of people’s minds.

The event is called the Dow Live Earth Run For Water and will take place on April 18th, 2010. Here’s a slide-show from the Live Earth announcement:

GWC will also be hosting a conference call and webinar this evening at 7:30 PM EST.

Here’s the call-in info:

Dial-in number: (218) 862-1000
Access code: 495650#

A few weeks ago, Global Water Challenge launched Water Warriors, a program to help ignite a worldwide movement that will make universal access to clean water and safe sanitation a reality. As grassroots leaders, they’ll be active in their local communities and online, raising awareness and funds in creative ways; encouraging Congress to increase funding for the issue; and helping turn other people into Water Warriors to build to a crescendo of support. Let us know what you’re doing—we’ll post it on our site and spread the word on the good work!

What is a Water Warrior?

wa•ter war•rior: a person who has committed to tackling the global water and sanitation crisis by going out into their community and:

1. Educating friends, family and neighbors about the magnitude of the problem and proven solutions.
2. Raising funds for simple, proven solutions, such as water filtration systems, soap and toilets.
3. Encouraging elected officials to increase water and sanitation funding.
4. Turning friends and family into Water Warriors to create a ripple effect.

Click here and here to find out ways that you can participate.

-Sweta Daga, Director of Communications for Global Water Challenge

Global Water Challenge was one of the lead NGO’s at this year’s Bonnaroo, the largest music festival in the United States. Thousands of concertgoers stopped by our tent exhibit to learn about water and sanitation issues. In three days, 1,500 people signed a petition to support the human right to water as mandated by the United Nations and 600 people wrote personal, hand-written letters to their representatives to call for support on critical water issues.

It’s no joke that women and children around the world have to carry 40-pound jerrycans an average of 6km every day to get water – that may or may not even be clean. We drove the point home with our jerrycan races, which educated people about the burden in a fun, but effective way.

I was amazed to see how willing people were to help—once they realized the scale of the problem.
Many just said: We had no idea. But now that we know, how can we help, what can we do?

Inspired by the energy and passion we saw at Bonnaroo, GWC is launching a new grassroots team called Water Warriors. A wa•ter war•rior is: a person who has committed to tackling the global water and sanitation crisis by going out into their community and:

1. Educating friends, family and neighbors about the magnitude of the problem and proven solutions.
2. Raising funds for simple, proven solutions, such as water filtration systems, soap and toilets.
3. Encouraging elected officials to increase water and sanitation funding.
4. Turning friends and family into Water Warriors to create a ripple effect.

To celebrate, we are hosting a launch party on July 27th, in Washington D.C. If you can’t make it or don’t live in DC, we’re hosting a conference call on July 28th. If you’re interested in becoming a Water Warrior, or learning more, we’d love for you to join us! For more information click, go to: http://globalwaterchallenge.org/warriors/warriors-home.php.

-Sweta Daga, Director of Communications, Global Water Challenge

Close to a billion people lack access to clean drinking water. 2.5 billion people lack access to safe sanitation. What do these numbers mean? In the developing world, the average person needs to walk 6km (3.73 miles) every day to fetch water that might not even be of good quality. Fetching water is also no easy task: each 5 gallon jerrycan weighs 40 pounds.

When women and girls can’t find a safe toilet, they are forced to go in the open, which exposes them to potential violence and disease. All of this means that hundreds of millions of people have to make a “choice” from among a series of bad options.

But the good news is, we have the solutions to solve this crisis. Global Water Challenge is a coalition made of 24 leading organizations who are working to get universal access to clean water and safe sanitation. We know that no one organization, one group, one idea, one well will solve it—we all need to work together, with your help.

GWC focuses on two areas—innovative financing and schools. We believe that by investing in local social entrepreneurs who can work within their communities to find the best solutions we can achieve sustainable results. Our other programmatic focus is increasing access to clean water and safe sanitation in schools in the developing world. Over half the world’s schools lack access to these basic necessities—imagine sitting through school all day without a place to use the bathroom.

In March, GWC visited some of our schools projects in Africa.

We were excited to see the progress that had been made, and to hear from students and teachers about the impact that GWC and partners were having. One of the schools we visited was Regan Elementary School. We were able to talk to the students who were members of the health club there, and ask them what their thoughts were and what they were doing to make sure they had access to clean water.

What they said really surprised and inspired us. With the support of their teachers and parents, the students had taken it upon themselves to make sure they had the ability to buy enough WaterGuard for the school. They started a vegetable garden where they grow cabbages to sell to the community to raise money to keep their water clean, and their lives healthy.

We also realized that it takes only $16 to provide Regan with enough WaterGuard for the year. You can learn more about Regan and how to help at www.globalwaterchallenge.org. Or help us reach out to Congress, and ask them to support the Water for the World Act, which asks for funding for these types of projects around the world.

-Sweta Daga, Director of Communications, Global Water Challenge

In addition to these events, along with GOOD Magazine we launched a cutting-edge video series to highlight global water and sanitation issues. The 13 organizations involved in the effort, including PSI, are thrilled with the outcome of our provocative series of videos which stimulate thought and action related to safe drinking water. Together, these videos have received over 1 million hits on YouTube!

Check out one of the videos!

In this video, kids slide down the chute of the popular kids toy, Crocodile Mile, only to splash into a big pool of sludgy, contaminated water. Viewers are surprised to learn in the developing world, a child dies every 20 seconds from severe diarrhea- a direct result of drinking dirty water and poor sanitation.

The videos weave the prevalence of diarrhea and unclean water into iconic moments in film and television, bringing the international crisis into popular culture. The videos were produced by GOOD, the integrated media company for people who want to live well and do good.

Among the organizations driving the effort to promote water and sanitation through this video series are PSI, the American Chemistry Council and Procter & Gamble Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program.

On WWD, we celebrate the importance of clean drinking water, but without collaborative partnerships like this one, water will continue to go unnoticed on the global stage. This seemingly com¬plex issue has relatively simple, cost-effective solutions; yet, it lacks global leadership. Until more partnerships are forged, responsibility will remain upstream.

Find out what you can do to take action on world water issues.

-Ashima Khanna, PSI