A national school water conservation
project in Barbados is set to launch on the eve of Inter-American Water Day (IAWD)
on Friday, October 3, 2003. First celebrated in 1993, IAWD falls on the first
Saturday of October each year.
A joint initiative of the Health Ministry,
in collaboration with the Barbados Water authority, the Ministry of Education
and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), the conservation project
will be launched at a press conference at the Ministry of Health at 10 AM on
Friday. A selection of audio visual equipment sponsored by the Pan American
Health Organization, will be awarded the to the top three schools in the
competition.
The IAWD 2003 theme, “Water, let’s not take
it for granted,” is a call on the public to promote the importance of water
management and prevent this valuable resource from becoming a source of disease
or death. In addition, the objectives of the IAWD include highlighting the
relationship between water and good health, promoting public awareness about its
efficient use and fostering water-related activities in the school age
population and the community at large.
The declaration of an annual
Inter-American Water Day (IAWD) in 1992 was initiated by the Pan American Health
Organization (PAHO), the Inter-American Association of Sanitary and
Environmental Engineering (AIDIS) and the Caribbean Water and Waste Water
Association (CWWA), with the signing of a declaration at the XXIII
Inter-American AIDIS Congress in Havana Cuba. In April 2001, the Organization of
American States (OAS) joined the initiative. The organizers affirm that the
commemoration should be viewed as a “celebration of water” by the public.
The IAWD collaborators maintain that while
in general, the countries of this region are abundantly rich in water resources,
water is not uniformly distributed, managed nor protected. In many areas also,
access to clean drinking water or water service at all is problematic for many
of the poorest members of the population. “Access to clean drinking water in
sufficient quantities is a right, not a privilege, and all citizens should be
afforded this right”, affirms the IAWD declaration.
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