"Donor funding is no longer necessary for this project", Anna Tsetkova writes on behalf of WfWP-member MAMA-86. "Therefore, we suggest transferring the funding so far donated to support safe drinking water at Kharkiv schools to the Mweteni WatSan centre project of our sister organisation in Tanzania." MAMA-86's very succesful school projects are spinning-off in a major way. State budgets have been allocated for the implementation of the safe water for (pre-)school children projects regionally, making additional financial backing for this project through WfWP and AKVO no longer necessary. Congratulations from all of us at WfWP!

As strategic partner of UN-Water, the Women for Water Partnership closely interacts with the UN Water Secretariat in the preparation for the World Summit Rio+20 in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro. In this context, WfWP President Alice Bouman-Dentener addressed women’s role in water and food security during the UN Water panel on the opening day of the Bonn nexus conference.

Joining our fundraising activity, are you? Wonderful! You can download the document to stick to your bathroom door right here. In English and in Dutch.

Today, November 19th, is World Toilet Day. About 2.6 billion people have no proper sanitation. It is about time that this situation is changed. But how do you get funding for your WASH and WATSAN projects in this day and age? WfWP turns to an unconventional solution.

WfWP is a member of the European Water Stewardship (EWS) steering committee and has supported the development of the EWS Launch “A vision becomes reality”. WfWP’s Lesha Witmer will participate as a panellist at the Launch, which is to be held in Brussels on the 24th of November 2011.

Right at this moment, the Bonn Nexus Conference is taking place. The multi-day conference examines the nexus of water, energy and food security in the run-up to Rio+20 next year. WfWP’s Chair Alice Bouman-Dentener was a panellist in one of UN-Water's special events.

The 3rd edition of the International “Water and Film” Events will take place in Marseille during the 6th World Water Forum. The leitmotif of this 6th Forum is “The Time for Solutions”. The competition is open to all and there are no admission fees. Deadline for registration is November 30th 2011. Women: take this opportunity to show the world that we are in fact, agents of change!

The International Conference 'Community and Water Services; challenges for sustainability', was held from September 29th through October 1st in Kandy, Sri Lanka. The conference, the first of its kind in the region, brought together ministers, local authorities, academia and executives from the water sector with 300 delegates from community based organisations to discuss the conditions for sustainable use and maintenance of decentralized water systems in rural environments. The Women for Water Partnership was invited to contribute the knowledge and expertise of women and their organizations active in this field.

Women for Water Partnership was well represented at the Stockholm Water Week in August 2011. Three WfWP steering committee members were active during several sessions. Apart from that, they took part in bilateral conversations with partners and networking activities. Read all about WfWP's Key Messages To Take Home as stated by Chair Alice Bouman-Dentener, about Kusum Athukorala's involvement in the WWAP Advisory Group on Gender Equality and Lesha Witmer's participation in the panel on Water Stewardship.

WfWP's small grant system enabled The Tegemeo Women Group in Mweteni, Tanzania to outfit their Water/Information centre with modern means of communication. The formarly hard to reach group can soon be communicated with through email and Skype, which is a long way from the once in a while phone calls and 'snail mail' of before.

Friday 16 September was the last day of the TGNP Gender Festival 2011 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. WfWP member TGNP organised and facilitated three days of Water and Energy workshops and fellow WfWP member Tegemeo Women Group (TWG) of Mweteni was one of the participants. They showcased their experience in developing and implementing their ongoing Water Supply and Sanitation project. The graphic presentation of their success story was received with much enthousiasm.

Home gardening has become a popular activity among the women of Mau Ara in Sri Lanka as a means of attaining self sustainability in cultivating vegetables, perennial crops, fruits, and ornamental plants that earn them an additional income by sale of the excess produce.

This development will contribute to a change of mindset and attitude in traditional communities who will be sensitized through women’s enhanced economic and intellectual status.

NetWwater conducted a series of rainwater harvesting projects for small hospitals and medical posts in the Central province of Sri Lanka. This project started as a direct result from the regional working conference of Women for Water in Sri Lanka in 2009. To date, NetWwater and its partners installed rainwater harvesting tanks for 11 hospitals and one gravity system and trained the personnel of the hospital on maintenance and use before handover. The project so far supplies more than 516,000 patients and 338,000 out-patients with safe water. Plans are being made for scaling-up the project. The success of the project triggered a further 22 applications.

Are you taking advantage of your summer holidays to read up? Well, consider taking this with you: "How to Lobby at International Conferences (for Dummies)” [ 460 kB]. At just 16 sparsely printed pages, you can easily read it in (under) half an hour.

In this paper gender differences in water carrying are considered and data about water access and carrying summarized from 44 countries that participated in the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) program.

 

The third Africa Conference on Hygiene and Sanitation is held July 19-21 in Rwanda, and is jointly convened an hosted by the Government of Rwanda and the African Minister's Council on Water (AMCOW). AfricaSan 3 aims to support African countries to meet the Millennium Development Goal for sanitation and hygiene. It addresses the singular challenge of scaling up access to improved sanitation services for more than 400 million people in Africa.

Women for Water Partnership signed a petition that will be handed to representatives of the government of The Netherlands today: World Water Day. The petition urges the Dutch government to make sure that, despite major budgetary cutbacks, water and sanitation for developing countries will remain high on its priorities list.

If you did not do it yet, please take a minute to read the message we sent out on 8 March, International Women's Day. If you support women’s cause, kindly pass on our message and think of one concrete thing to do for us:

• Spread the message to decision makers at national and international levels
• Include WfWP or its member organizations in your work and/or support their projects (www.womenforwater.org)
• And make sure it is about women's participation (not just about gender mainstreaming)

It is working already. We've spotted our message on several websites, from The Netherlands (VAM foundation) to Suriname (Projekta). We hope many organisations follow their lead. Thank you in advance for your support.

In many parts of the world, women and girls are responsible for water, sanitation and hygiene in their households. Therefore, it is crucial that they are actively included in the design and management of interventions. TheWaterChannel shows videos to illustrate that.

After a long and intense preparation phase, Tegemeo Women’s Group and Women for Water Partnership received news from Aqua for All that a grant has been awarded for the Mweteni water supply and sanitation project. This enables the start of the first phase of the long awaited project, which commences March 2011 and is to be completed by June this year.

In Mwihoko area, about 125 km north-west of Nairobi, a rainwater harvesting project is being put into place that will secure safe drinking water for rural women and their families. No longer will women and girls have to walk or cycle for hours in order to fetch contaminated river water which, next to a fluoride-contaminated community borehole, is their only source of drinking water.

Thanks to the efforts of Women for Water Partnership, Soroptimists Kenya and Melania Women Foundation, the rainwater harvesting project of Mwihoko Women Organisation has been financed by the Eureko Achmea foundation.

The Murumba Primary school water and sanitation project exceeds expectations. Some 700 schoolchildren and 15 teachers now have access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation facilities. Also, 420 people were trained on water management and sanitation.

A big thank you from Women for Water Partnership and Soroptimists club Kisumu Winam to Aqua for All, Bas and Frida and all other individual funders who kindly contributed to the project via AKVO.org.

WfWP member NetWwater succesfully co-organised the event: A Voice for Water, A Voice for Women. The conference on Water Security and Climate Change for South Asian Women was held in Sri Lanka on Februari 2, 2011.

WfWP Steering Committee member Kusum Athukorala was recently elected Chair of SLWP, the Sri Lanka Water Partnership. We wish Kusum great success!

Alice Bouman-Dentener, Chair of WfWP, was interviewed for a documentary on the subject of women and gender equity within the Dutch water sector. The result can be viewed on Youtube.

Over the festive season, you may not have had the time or possibility to check out our website. Therefore, we bring you up to speed by listing some inspiring new additions, like:

  Did you know the Katosi Women's Group won the first prize, being the best farmer group exhibitor at the 29^th World Food Day exhibition? Read all about it!

The Ugly Tale of the Climate Change Monster

This tale tells the story of how climate change affects agriculture and the daily lives of small holders in Africa and around the globe. The tale was inspired by 'There's a hole in the bucket...', the side-event Women for Water organized during 'Down 2 Earth', the global conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change 2010. Read all about it...

On Tuesday 2 November, from 13.00 to 15.00 hours, Women for Water Partnership (WfWP) organizes a side-event on the 2010 global conference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (AFC conference). In this side-event WfWP members share with participants the experience and knowledge of women facing problems in water management and food security due to the effects of the climate change.

While attending the World Water Week in Stockholm, Women for Water expressed its support to the call for bringing the UN Watercourses Convention into force by 2011.

Women for Water having recently joined their Board of Advice, the European Water Partnership published a double interview with WfWP's Alice Bouman-Dentener and Lesha Witmer.

Women for Water Partnership recently joined the Board of Advice of the European Water Partnership. Since February 2009, WfWP has been strategic partner of Aquawareness. Project manager Agnes Biesiekierska: "We are delighted to intensify our already ongoing joint activities with Women for Water to a deepened fruitful collaboration."

August 18th, 2010 - Women for Water joins the People to People initiative for Pakistan, raising funds for women's organizations working on the ground in Pakistan. Women for Water urges you to take part in this People to People campaign.

August 4th, 2010 - By a vote of 122 in favour to none against and 41 abstentions, the General Assembly on the 28th of July 2010 adopted a resolution declaring “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”.