You can make a difference

I’ve been up for just over an hour today and I have brushed my teeth, washed my face, filled my water bottle twice and made a pot of coffee. All of this was done with the clean water that comes from my tap. Like most Canadians, I take it for granted that I have clean water at my disposal whenever I need it. Even in the rare instance where we have been put on a boil water advisory, we have bottled water available to us. Approximately one billion people in the developing world* do not have the same luxury, and diseases from contaminated water are killing more children every day than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined*. It breaks my heart to think of their parents trying to care for them while not having one of the most basic needs, clean water.

The P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) Program helps provide clean drinking water to people in need through a water purifying technology developed by P&G. One small P&G purification packet quickly turns 10 litres of dirty, potentially deadly water into clean, drinkable water. See how it’s done in the video below.

To date, more than seven billion litres of clean drinking water have been provided by humanitarian organizations across the globe using P&G packets, helping to save an estimated 39,000 lives in more than 75 countries.

This past spring, P&G and Walmart teamed up and committed to donating one day of clean water** for every P&G product purchased at Walmart or Walmart.ca during the month of April. During that month, Canadians rallied together and in the end, P&G donated 8.6 million days of clean water to the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Fund as part of its Clean Water initiative. Since May 1, more than 20 P&G products, including Tide, Pampers, Duracell, Dawn and Pantene have continued to generate a donation equivalent to one day of clean drinking water**.

To help bring the program even closer to its goal of donating 25 million litres of water in a 12 month-period, P&G and Walmart will once again open the program up to include every P&G product from July 16 – 31, 2014***, and they are looking for people to take part in the #cleanwater Photo Challenge.

The #cleanwater Photo Challenge

From July 18-31st I will be tweeting photos inspired by the word of the day on the #cleanwater calendar below, and I invite you to do the same. The photo could include clean water itself, or simply the impact water has (ie. a satisfied smile and wipe of the mouth after gulping clean water from a glass or a happy child after a dip in the lake). Be sure to use the #cleanwater hashtag as well as the hashtag for the word of the day. At the end of the challenge, one winner will be randomly selected to receive a $250 Walmart gift card and a bundle of P&G products.

 

*Source: World Health Organization

**For every P&G product purchased at Walmart from April 1 – 30, 2014, P&G donated US$ 0.02 to the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Fund. For each purchase of a selection of P&G products from May 1, 2014 – July 17, 2014, P&G will donate US$ 0.02 to the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Fund.

***For every P&G product purchased at Walmart from July 16 – 31, 2014, P&G will donate US$ 0.02 to the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Fund. For each purchase of a selection of P&G products from August 1, 2014 – March 31, 2015, P&G will donate US$ 0.02 to the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Fund.

I am a P&Gmom. As part of my affiliation with this group, I have been offered compensation to participate in the #cleanwater photo challenge. The views, opinions and photographs expressed on this blog and in my social networks are my own.