The We Are Water Foundation has received two iAgua awards: Best Report in the Magazine and Best Presentation. “We would like to thank iAgua for the excellent work carried out in the last few years, which can be seen here today, as it has been able to gather the entire sector, something that is essential. Thank you very much for your contribution and for these awards that are an encouragement”, Xavier Torras, director of the Foundation, declared at the ceremony of the third edition of the prestigious awards that took place at the Roca Madrid Gallery.

The We Are Water Foundation, which participated in these awards, was the leader of the nominees with five nominations; it was followed by Veolia Water Technologies and the Aquae Foundation, with four nominations; Acciona Agua, Grupo Inclam, OGESA, Aqualia, Escuela del Agua, IUACA, Noksel and Suez Advanced Solutions had three nominations. There were over 100 nominees, among them various professionals, institutions and corporations, all of them with water as one of the pillars of their work. Apart from the two awards, the Foundation was also nominated for the Best Strategy in Social Networks, the Best Advertising Campaign (#NoWalking4Water) and the Best Foundation.

The prize for Best Report in the iAgua Magazine has been awarded to The emerging contaminants: hidden enemies at home by Santi Serrat, member of the content creation team of the Foundation. The article explains the concept of “emerging contaminant” of water and which of these contaminants are poured into the water from our homes. It also shows a disturbing reality: there are many more contaminants in the water that we thought, they are not biodegradable, every day we detect more and it is difficult to eliminate them or we do not know how to do it, as the existing water treatment plants cannot fight them.

The prize to the Best Presentation was awarded to Carlos Garriga, Project Manager of the Foundation, who carried it out during the presentation of the tenth issue of the iAgua Magazine at the headquarters of the Botín Foundation, in Madrid, on the 18th March. The presentation describes the situation of over 600 million people around the world that do not have access to water and need to walk daily to collect it, spending a total of 125 million hours. This task is carried out mainly by women and girls that suffer the dangers and the physical exhaustion of these terrible trips that take time, a time they should spend socializing or going to school, and which endangers the health of their community due to the frequent poor condition of the water.

In the presentation Garriga describes some of the experiences of the Foundation in its projects and especially in Africa, a continent that suffers this blight endemically. These experiences motivated the launching of the campaign #NoWalking4Water with the feet of a woman that needs to walk to collect water as its symbol. “Every time we visit countries such as Bolivia, Ecuador, Philippines, India, Ethiopia, Ghana… Anywhere we go we see those same feet travelling kilometres and kilometres to collect the same dirty water -Garriga declared when receiving the award.– “What we wish to do at the Foundation is to show this situation, to denounce it and to do our bit to change it”.

iAgua filled all the seating capacity of the Roca Madrid Gallery rapidly, which is a healthy symptom of the importance acquired by water in all areas of society. More than 250 professionals enjoyed the most important celebration of the water sector in Spain, an event that crowned the winners of the 27 categories that cover the entire spectrum of institutions and professionals that work daily in the management and conservation of water.

Elisa Martínez Bermejo, on behalf of Roca Madrid Gallery, started the event that was hosted by Águeda García de Durango, in charge of the contents at iAgua. 27 awards were presented, which are the best affirmation of the complexity in the world of water and an encouragement for a sector that needs such a high-level forum.