News from Public Citizen's Water For All Campaign
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World Water Week 2004, March 14-22
Call to Action! Organize your community to celebrate World Water Week,
from March 14, International Day on Dams, to March 22, World Water Day.
PLEASE FORWARD to interested lists, groups and individuals.

All around the world, communities are planning activities around World
Water Week to celebrate Earth's most valuable resource -- water.

Communities are organizing to promote water conservation, watershed
restoration and universal access to clean and affordable water in the
face of a number of threats such as pollution, privatization of
municipal water and sewage systems, water cut-offs to families,
groundwater mining and bottled water operations.

There are many places, around the world and right here in the United
States, where the human right to water is violated everyday.
Multinational corporations, such as the French conglomerate SUEZ, know
as United Water in the U.S., privatize water systems, layoff public
workers and impose prohibitive water rates (sometimes increases of as
much as 300 percent) on even the poorest communities. Big bottled water
companies, such as Nestle, devastate the inhabitants and environments of
large areas by sucking the water out from underneath the land and
selling it in little plastic bottles for a huge profit. In the
developing world, children die from waterborne diseases, and women and
young girls must often walk for miles everyday to procure only the
essential amount of water for their families -- usually at the expense
of more productive activities like school or work.

The world's clean water resources are being used up and polluted at an
alarming rate; water is not limitless, and soon there will not be much
left -- even in your community. When this scarcity reaches a crisis
point who do you want to be in control of your water, your local
municipality or a multinational corporation? Celebrating World Water
Week is a way for your community to empower itself and contribute to
global solidarity over the water issues that will increasingly affect
every citizen of the world.

Below is a "toolbox" which we have constructed to aid your community in
putting together an event or otherwise promoting a way to mark and
celebrate World Water Week.

1. The Bottled Water Taste-Test. Click here for a guide on how to
how to hold your own Taste-Test,
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/us/articles.cfm?ID=11094 [2].

2. Hold your own Water Justice Film Festival. Whether you have a
group of 15 or 1500 people, film is a great way to bring community
together, learn about the issues, have fun, and inspire discussion.
Click here for a list of films concerning issues of "water justice,"
information on speakers and experts in your area, and advice on how to
put on your own Festival,
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/us/articles.cfm?ID=11098 [3]. Click
here see materials for the 2004 Water Justice Film Festival in
Washington, DC.

3. Express your power as a consumer! Don't buy bottled water. Join
the international campaign against Nestle and Coca Cola. Click here for
details, http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/us/articles.cfm?ID=11095 [4].

4. The Carry Your Own Water Role-play. In most societies around the
world, women are the traditional household water providers. In many
places in the developing world, women and even very little girls must
walk for hours everyday to obtain water for their families. Put yourself
in their place. Raise awareness about their struggles and the violation
of their human rights and about the complicity of the International
Financial Institutions like the World Bank. Then make your voices heard.
Click here to learn more,
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/us/articles.cfm?ID=11096 [5].

5. Take control of your environment! Test you local water sources
for pollution and contamination. Join your local watershed restoration
or urban creek council to promote responsible environmental stewardship.
Click here to learn how,
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/Water/us/articles.cfm?ID=11099 [6].

Share your community's plans for World Water Week with people around
the world. Send an email to Peter Ambler at [email protected] [7] and we
will publicize it on our website. We are creating a list of activities
in the US to share with our friends and allies around the world. Feel
free to contact a Water for All organizer if you'd like to brainstorm
ideas and/or connect with other like-minded people in your region.

For more information and ideas or to connect with other concerned
people in your area, contact Peter Ambler at [email protected] [7] or
202.454.5169. We look forward to building this historic, life-affirming
movement with you in the month of March and beyond!

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