WaterAid at Glastonbury 2004

Once again WaterAid was one of Glastonbury Festival's three main charities, and we had our most successful event ever this year.

The festival, held from 24 to 27 June, is a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness about water and sanitation, not least because having somewhere clean to go to the toilet is at the forefront of everyone's minds. A staggering £130,000 was raised from donations from festival-goers.

Thank you to all those festival goers who dug deep in their pockets - your generosity will bring a lasting supply of safe water and hygienic sanitation to over 1200 people in Africa and Asia.

In addition, 10,082 people signed our Flush out poverty petition, calling for the UK government to increase aid spending on water and sanitation, bringing our total to 39,707 signatories. The petition was presented to 10 Downing Street on 1 July by WaterAid's Sally Warren, accompanied by Don Foster, MP for Bath (Liberal Democrat) who wore a toilet seat around his head and Peter Bottomley, MP for Worthing West (Conservative).

The petition had been signed by a number of artists who performed at this year's festival. They included, Basement Jaxx, Badly Drawn Boy, Franz Ferdinand, Elbow, Travis, Billy Bragg and this year's hot property The Scissor Sisters, as well as DJs John Peel, Vernon Kay and Lauren Lavern. Many artists also signed a loo seat which will be auctioned off with all proceeds going to WaterAid.

In addition, performers at the Dance Tent signed a Glastonbury t-shirt and a separate t-shirt was signed by none other than Paul McCartney, who headlined the main stage on Saturday night.

If you watched the festival on television you may well have seen the WaterAid tap, toilet and poo! These costumes - designed to highlight the fact that not everyone has water on tap or a safe place to go to the toilet - were worn by our fantastic volunteers and certainly gained lots of attention from both the festival goers and the media - which all helps in awareness-raising.

Thank you to all our volunteers and to everyone who supported WaterAid either by making a donation or signing the Flush out poverty petition.

Roll on Glastonbury 2005!