In 2016 the We Are Water Foundation has been an agent of change of processes, which have allowed it to make the problems of water and sanitation known to many more people. Laying the foundation to continue advancing in 2017.

The campaign #NoWalking4Water was launched on the 22nd March, World Water Day, and it has been an extraordinary channel to establish a communication platform between all of us. Its goal is to make us aware of the great injustice affecting millions of women and girls. The success of the campaign motivated the Foundation to continue working and to redouble efforts to disseminate the message even more this year. Help us with your photograph.

Water is not only essential for drinking and for hygiene, it participates in all aspects of our life: it generates work and is present in any wealth creation process. This consideration is essential to face the development of the most disadvantageous areas, but also to maintain the socioeconomic balance in the industrialised world. Also to commemorate the World Water Day, the Foundation gathered nine experts in the fields of communication, technology, management, solidarity and sociology at the masterclass “Water and Jobs. The power to transform our lives”. They explained and shared with university students the tremendous potential of water and also its vulnerability. A meeting that has established the path to follow in the necessary dissemination of knowledge and reflection.

One of the biggest problems humans face in this century is climate change and its immediate negative effects on the lack of water. The evolution of the Earth´s climate has an impact on the food security of millions of people and implicates the management of water access in many areas that until now had lived without caring for this problem. On the other hand, meteorology is an essential science to prevent disastrous floors and hurricanes. The Foundation visited Paris to participate in the 13th International Weather and Climate Forum, together with meteorological professionals of the media to find out about the advances in the climate sciences and to join efforts to go forward in the dissemination of awareness raising messages. Its activity and the #NoWalking4Water campaign were explained to political bodies, among them the French Minister of the Environment, Energy and Sea, Ségolène Royal, taking an important step in its dissemination.

The expansion of the Festival continues growing and in its third edition the international participation has reached 88 countries, 10 more than in the previous edition of 2014. The competition has been consolidated as the ideal formula to communicate and raise awareness of the water problems on an international level and it is already a benchmark in the world of audio visual art. The winning videos and the 40 finalists make up a real audio visual library of the situation of the water world and sanitation around the world. The fourth edition, which will take place in 2018, is already warming up.

Fortunately latrines are no longer taboo and they have taken an important step further this year to become a part of our lives, our conversations, our projects… It is a great advance, so that those of us who have one learn to make a better use of it and therefore take more care of the water in our homes, but most of all, so that the 946 million people who still defecate in the open stop doing it. The Foundation organised the debate Sanitation: the engine of progress to study the situation of sanitation around the world from a historical perspective and the communication actions that are needed to deprive it from our psychological and cultural prejudices.

The tourism sector has been accused many times of wasting water and destabilising the environment. This is rapidly changing, and the environmental responsibility is an increasingly important value in a sector that had never before taken such care of water and its environment. At the debate Smart Water, Smart Cities, organised at the iWater venue in Barcelona, the experts in tourism, urban planning, architecture and communication explained to us how tourists are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of the destinations they choose and that they use less and less water. The developers and builders are already considering desalination and the reuse of water as a key element of the development of the sector.

The Foundation attended the most important event in the water sector in Spain with five nominations, obtaining the prize for Best Report in the iAgua magazine and for Best Presentation. This was a stimulus for further progress and with your help the message will reach farther in this year 2017: we need to continue being social agents of change to raise awareness so that water and sanitation reach everyone.