WWD 2001 Event
India, Water Aid - from villages to state capitals
World Water Day assumes greater importance to WaterAid India programme, Partner Organisations and the Project Communities as all are committed to the goals reaffirmed on the day. The observance of the day also provides unique opportunity to partner organisations and communities to celebrate their achievements and to disseminate the success to others. The tradition of observing World Water Day was first initiated by the partner organisations in 1996 and since then the event has grown year after year. Today it is one of the largest events organised on the World Water Day occasion across the country.
Tradition of World Water Day observance
The observance consists of series of events organised at villages, cluster of villages and districts, which finally culminate at the state level in the operational states of WaterAid. Last year at the central Water Day commemoration organised at Tiruchirapalli City in Tamilnadu, nearly 3000 persons participated. The overall people's participation in the events organised by the partners last year in all the 5 operational states crossed 25,000.
Processions, street plays and drama, exhibitions, meetings and seminars are some of the activities organised to disseminate messages on water, sanitation and hygiene promotion. Communities, local leaders, staff of partner NGOs, Government functionaries, representatives of International organisations and eminent personalities take the opportunity to express their solidarity on the occasion. Thus it provides a unique opportunity for interaction between policy makers and the people.
Plans for 2001 World Waterday
This year, to observe the day, preparations are being made by partners with the guidance of the two WaterAid supported networks, WaterNet in Tamilnadu and Jala Samakhya in Andhra Pradesh. The state-level event of Tamilnadu will be held at Cuddalore starting on the 18th March 2001 and continued upto 22nd March 2001 while the event in Andhra Pradesh will be starting at Hyderabad on the 22nd of March 2001and continued for 5 days. Other events at village and district levels will either precede or follow as convenient to the communities and partner organisations. Overall about 50,000 participants are expected to participate in the various events to be organised by the partner organisations in all the 5 operational states this year.
The past experience shows that the observance of World Water Day, especially at village level, provides a unique opportunity to disseminate messages to the people not directly covered by the programme. More importantly, the solidarity expressed by the large number of communities during the events at various locations is effectively used for influencing and lobbying with the Government authorities for positive changes in the policy and programme implementation. The event also facilitates healthy competition between communities and staff of partner agencies from all over the states to display the works carried out by each of them which also becomes the platform for sharing of experiences and learning among them.
Importantance of such events
Observance of such days on various issues by organisations with commitment could bring out tremendous awareness among large number of population. The importance of organising such events at the cluster level is as important as organising events at the state or district level. While the district or state level observance help in influencing and advocating issues with senior officials, the village level events facilitate to bring about the much-needed awareness and mobilisation to address the issues of concern effectively.
It is hoped that more number of organisations observe the World Water Day to express their commitment to the issues and take advantage of the power of mass awareness that is possible from such events of greater significance.
Contact
Shunmuga Paramasivan
Country Representative
WaterAid India
email: waindia@satyam.net.in