Within the last year, I learned that my company Spectrum Brands has a partnership with a nonprofit called Well Aware (https://wellawareworld.org/), which seeks to provide sustainable water solutions to communities in East Africa. This sparked my interest because I’ve had the chance to visit Uganda and Tanzania and have kept in touch with some friends there. I’m looking forward to participating in Well Aware’s annual Shower Strike fundraiser this April and will be sure to share more details when it rolls around.
Well Aware and other nonprofits focused on water solutions exist because many communities around the world do not have easy access to safe drinking water. People often have to walk for hours to get water and even then it can be unsafe.
Pope Francis raises this issue of water in Laudato Si’:
“Yet access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival and, as such, is a condition for the exercise of other human rights. Our world has a grave social debt towards the poor who lack access to drinking water, because they are denied the right to a life consistent with their inalienable dignity.”
Today when we turn on the faucet, let’s give thanks for the gift of accessible, clean water. But let’s also go a step further to help conserve water as best we can and support policies/causes/actions that appropriately promote water security throughout the world.