Ariel, P&G and PSI Partner for Safe Drinking Water
May 5, 2008 — Ariel announced the launch of a brand new initiative to donate 80 million liters of safe drinking water to children in developing nations. Working in partnership with the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program and PSI’s Five & Alive initiative, Ariel will donate 10 liters of safe drinking water for every special pack purchased in the UK from 1 May — the equivalent to a week’s supply of drinking water for a small child in the developing world.
Respected British actress and mother Joely Richardson is supporting the campaign to inspire the British public to help get safe drinking water to families in countries that need it most. Having witnessed first hand the life-saving efforts of the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program in Malawi, Ms. Richardson will help to educate people on how their support of the Ariel campaign can truly make a difference abroad.
Since its launch in 2003, the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program has provided more than one billion liters of clean drinking water for children and their families in need around the world. It has provided clean drinking water to people in 30 developing nations with the introduction of the PUR™ purifier of water. Since 2004, the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program has supported Five & Alive’s programs with an annual contribution of $1.4 million dollars to help further programs such as distribution of PUR™ to orphanages in Uganda, a school program in Kenya, clinic programs and an emergency relief response network for Latin America.
Five & Alive, an initiative of PSI, reaches children five and under to prevent and treat malaria, water-borne illness, pneumonia and malnutrition by providing children and their families with the education, products, services and care needed to improve health and save lives in more than 30 countries. In 2006, Five & Alive program treated over 8.6 billion liters of drinking water, averting 4.1 million cases of water borne illness and saving lives of 6000 children through its safe water programs alone.
P&G and Five & Alive have been in partnership for the last three years with the goal of providing safe drinking water in the developing world through household water treatment using P&G’s PUR™ Purifier of Water. P&G and Five & Alive work together to provide safe drinking water with PUR™ in Uganda, Kenya, the Dominican Republic, Malawi, Haiti, Pakistan, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia.
Ariel’s safe drinking water donation will be supplied to the countries using PUR™ technology – sachets of a powder that cleans and purifies water to World Health Organisation standards for safe drinking water, importantly reducing diarrheal illness. Each 4g sachet can purify 10 liters of water, with the campaign aiming to donate a total of 80 million liters of safe drinking water to children in developing nations.
British Actress, Joely Richardson, calls on the British public to get behind the initiative: “I’ve just come back from a trip to Malawi where I saw first hand how the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Programme and Five & Alive are saving lives. At home we take it for granted that we have clean drinking water literally on tap and it’s staggering that so many countries still don’t have this privilege. Thankfully there is something we can all do here that can improve the lives of millions of children.”
The initiative will be in UK stores nationwide from May 1 until September 30, 2008. It forms part of the ‘Be Water Wise with Ariel’ 2008 campaign which aims to raise awareness of the importance of water in our day to day lives, both in the UK and abroad. As part of its commitment to sustainability, Ariel is working in partnership with Waterwise, the UK’s leading authority in water efficiency, to encourage the British public to make small changes in the home that can help to protect one of the world’s most precious resources.
For more information:
