Campaigners carry the can to Downing Street

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Campaigners in traditional African dress carry water to Downing Street.

Credit: David Parry/PA

2 July 2009

Today, as temperatures in London soared, a group of African and Asian Londoners wearing traditional dress carried jerry cans from the River Thames to Downing Street.

Accompanied by campaigners, they handed in over 80,000 petitions from the British public urging leaders at this year’s G8 summit to address the appalling injustice that leaves billions of people worldwide without clean water or basic sanitation.

Their journey took them up over Westminster Bridge, past the House of Commons and Big Ben, finishing at Downing Street in the scorching heat.

The women recreated the experience that’s a reality for millions of people around the world. As the collectors of water, women spend hours each day walking and queuing to collect water for their families. Often, the water they work so hard to collect is dirty, polluted and unsafe to drink.

Zimbabwean Londoner Lindiwe Maseko draws water from the Thames.

Credit: David Parry/PA

The walk took place in support of End Water Poverty, a global campaign that aims to bring an end to the water and sanitation crisis. The coalition is formed of over 150 organisations from around the world, who are all demanding urgent action and leadership from donors and governments alike to address the global sanitation and water crisis. Coalition partners include WaterAid, Tearfund and Unicef.

Steve Cockburn, End Water Poverty International Campaigns Coordinator, said. "If London ran out of water on a day like today there would be outrage.

"We want Gordon Brown to be just as outraged that 4,000 children are dying every day in the poorest parts the world because they lack clean water and safe sanitation.

"The G8 summit next week provides a perfect opportunity for the Prime Minister to stand up for the world’s poor and ensures their rights to the most basic elements of life - taps and toilets - are realised in full. Only by doing this can their promises to fight poverty be kept."

Leaders at next week’s G8 have been mandated to address this global crisis. Historically, political leaders have not given water and sanitation high priority, and the women will call on Gordon Brown to show leadership and talk taps and toilets in L’Aquila, Italy.

"Surely the Prime Minister would insist upon urgent action if he arrived in Italy next week and there were no toilet facilities and dirty water was served up at the negotiation tables," Cockburn concluded.

It's not too late to sign our petition! You can do this in our campaigns section 

For all media enquiries please contact:

Chloe Irvine (WaterAid): 020 7793 4909 or 07514 941577

Notes to Editors:

WaterAid enables the world's poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. Our vision is of a world where everyone has access to these basic human rights which underpin health, education and livelihoods and form the first, essential step in overcoming poverty.

• At least 4,000 children die every day as a result of diseases caused by unclean water and poor sanitation.
• 884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world's population.
• 2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, this is almost two fifths of the world's population.
• WaterAid projects providing safe water, sanitation and hygiene education cost just £15 per head.