Operation URGENCE EAU, One SMS = One donation from 9 March to 9 April 2006 To participate in the operation URGENCE EAU: Send the word "EAU" via SMS to 82828. You will receive the logo of the operation to thank you for your participation (WAP and e-mode phones). Each SMS sent generates a donation of 1,5 € to SOLIDARITES' drinking water programmes.

Drinking water, the humanitarian emergency

Here is indeed a silent hecatomb that kills 15 human beings every minute. It is the first cause of mortality in the world, and it decimates 8 million people per year.
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In conflict and natural disaster situations, access to drinking water and to hygiene is a crucial daily priority for the survival of local populations.

In our humanitarian action, we observe every day and everywhere that unsafe water kills as a result of waterborne diseases: cholera, typhoid, hepatitis, malaria, diarrhoea…

But this is not a fatality! It is question of motivation and of resources. And SOLIDARITÉS' volunteers, hydraulic engineers, water and sanitation technicians, logisticians know what should be done: to install flexible tanks and purification stations, to tap springs, to drill wells equipped with hand pumps, to set up adsduction networks, latrines, to offer hygiene training, without forgetting water facilities for agriculture: irrigation channels, reservoirs, dams.

In this document, we present several water access and hygiene programmes, techniques, methods and competences that enable us to aid over one million people in the world every year in emergency as well as reconstruction situations, with the support of our donors and institutional partners, whom we wish to thank on this occasion.

Water kills and we must face this dramatic challenge. There is too much indifference, too much selfishness or resignation. However, we know that there is no fatality.

Thus we invite you to take part in SOLIDARITÉS' humanitarian fight: water for life, for all.

Alain Boinet.
Director General and Founder

(1) « L’Eau », by Michel Camdessus, published by Robert Laffont, 2004.