How Can We Make A Difference (Advocacy, Education and Reconditioning)? (Waltrina Middleton)

HOW CAN WE MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Ethos water campaign believes that “Every Bottle Makes a Difference.” (www.ethoswater.com) Its campaign entails the contribution of 5 cents per sale towards the organization’s goal to donate $10 million over five years. Like Ethos, organizations around the world are developing ways they can also make a difference and reflect Mahatma Gandhi’s challenge to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” Making a difference can range from volunteerism and public service to lobbying for policy changes and development. Individuals, organizations and or corporations can provide monetary contributions, sponsor seminars, workshops and or forums on hygiene education, behavior change and social reconditioning—changing the way citizens think about water. Identifying an organization to join and support or developing personal goals and outreach is the first step in answering the question, “How can we make a difference?” The key is to become educated and informed advocates and resources.

Countless number of organizations on a national and global scale serves as advocates on water issues. Their focus may be access to water supply, land property and protection rights, sustainability and economic growth, freshwater and urbanization, irrigation and agriculture or globalization. They provide a service to help individuals and communities become informed advocates as well.

Perhaps a community is interested in learning how to properly manage local resources or water treatment regulation and engineering or cutting back on domestic water consumption. How would citizens become informed and involved and implement changes in behavior and hygienic practices? Maybe the answers the individual or group is seeking can be found through the World Bank, the Environmental Protection Agency or the Food and Water Watch organization. The answer could be found closer to home through the Commission of Public Works or state legislation. Exploring government, not-for-profit and private resources committed to water advocacy, education and reconditioning affords everyone an opportunity to be a part of a global quest to restore human dignity by securing clean, safe and affordable water for all.

The following sites do not by any means exhaust the abundance of resources that are available to the public. The internet has certainly increased access to information and serves as a good tool to seek out an appropriate organization to aid in a specific advocacy, education and reconditioning need. The sites listed are provided to help steer the concerned citizen in the right direction with hopes that it will inspire one or more to become a glocal (global and local) servant on behalf of water policy matters.

Advocacy, Education and Reconditioning Resources
World Health Organization (WHO)

http://www.who.int/en/

The World Health Organization, as noted on its website, “is the United Nations specialized agency for health. It was established on 7 April 1948. WHO's objective, as set out in its Constitution, is the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health. Health is defined in WHO's Constitution as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

The World Health Organization monitors the safety of water conditions around the globe. The research tools its website provides addresses water, sanitation and health. The WHO also outlines its partnership with the Millennium Development Goals. The WHO writes that its work “touches not one specific goal, but several at the same time, for example, WHO’s work on strengthening health systems.” The WHO’s website provides links to the MDGs and a variety of links on clean water and access.

The World Health Organization has outlined six key areas of water sanitation and hygiene. Those key areas also formulate the major functions of WHO. They are:


 * Articulating consistent, ethical and evidence-based policy and advocacy positions;


 * Managing information by assessing trends and comparing performance; setting the agenda for, and stimulating, research and development;


 * Catalysing change through technical and policy support, in ways that stimulate cooperation and action and help to build sustainable national and intercountry capacity;


 * Negotiating and sustaining national and global partnerships;


 * Setting, validating, monitoring and pursuing the proper implementation of norms and standards;


 * stimulating the development and testing of new technologies, tools and guidelines.

WHO, with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, furthers its efforts around the globe with the support of six regional offices in Africa, the Americas, Easter Mediterranean, Europe, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific.