HEINEKEN Africa Foundation teams up with WaterAid to help communities protect themselves in fight against Covid-19

on
26 August 2020
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Health, Partnership
WaterAid Mobile car campaign targets 43 municipal districts of Maputo. Covid-19 response, Mozambique, May 2020
Image: WaterAid/Signus/Edson Artur

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HEINEKEN Africa Foundation is donating more than £1 million (€1.2 million) to WaterAid to support the international charity’s emergency response to COVID-19 in Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, and Mozambique.    
 
The work will provide much needed handwashing facilities in busy public spaces as well as water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in isolation centres, schools, and healthcare centres. Through the partnership, they will also roll out large-scale hygiene campaigns to help vulnerable communities protect themselves against COVID-19.  
 
Together they hope to reach millions of people across the four countries with lifesaving hygiene education and handwashing facilities. 
 
Handwashing with water and soap is the first line of defence against the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, but millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa have nowhere to wash their hands at home. One in six healthcare centres globally do not have clean water and soap for handwashing, putting health workers and patients at considerable risk of infection.   
 
The project includes providing more than 1,000 handwashing facilities to health care centres and other public places in Nigeria. In Rwanda, the partnership will include providing soap and hand sanitiser to schools as lockdown measures ease in the country. The work will also include setting up 320 handwashing stations in health care facilities and marketplaces in Mozambique. In South Africa, work will include handing out hygiene items such as period products, sanitiser, and soap to vulnerable communities and households.   
 
The support of the HEINEKEN Africa Foundation will also help WaterAid deliver crucial hygiene education to marginalised communities, applying cultural-specific messaging to each location to ensure the widest number of people are reached. In Mozambique, for example, hygiene messaging will broadcast in local languages on community radio, which make up 75% of the country’s radio stations and play a central role in spreading good hygiene, especially in rural areas.    
 
The partnership will run for six months in South Africa, Rwanda, and Mozambique and will last for seven months in Nigeria.    
 
Suzanne Giele, HEINEKEN Africa Foundation Manager, said:  
 
“Clean water, decent sanitation and hygiene are basic human rights but unfortunately vulnerable communities, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to these basic essentials.  
 
“Water, sanitation and hygiene have been on our agenda for many years already and I am happy that we will scale up and accelerate our efforts in this field because handwashing with soap not only helps to protect against the spread of COVID-19, but also other infectious diseases. Together with WaterAid, I hope we can make a difference for communities during these very challenging times and after.” 
 
Tim Wainwright, Chief Executive, WaterAid said: 

 
“The need for clean water and hygiene has never been more pressing as we all battle to contain the spread of COVID-19. The support of the HEINEKEN Africa Foundation will provide crucial and timely support for our vital COVID-19 response work in four countries.  
 
“In Sub-Saharan Africa, about three quarters of people don’t have anywhere to wash their hands at home, making it easy for the virus to spread. Our teams are working to install handwashing facilities where they’re needed most alongside crucial hygiene education to help people protect themselves against the spread of deadly diseases.”    
 
For more information, please contact: 
 
Ekene Oboko, Senior Media Officer, [email protected] or
Laura Crowley, PR Manager, [email protected]  
Or call our after-hours press line on +44 (0)7887 521 552,
or email [email protected] 
 
Notes to Editors: 

WaterAid

WaterAid is working to make clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere within a generation. The international not-for-profit organisation works in 28 countries to change the lives of the poorest and most marginalised people. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 26.4 million people with clean water and 26.3 million people with decent toilets. For more information, visit www.wateraid.org/uk, follow @WaterAid or @WaterAidPress on Twitter, or find WaterAid UK on Facebook at www.facebook.com/wateraid.

  • 785 million people in the world – one in ten – do not have clean water close to home.[1]
  • 2 billion people in the world – almost one in four – do not have a decent toilet of their own.[2]
  • Around 310,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by poor water and sanitation. That's almost 800 children a day, or one child every two minutes.[3]
  • Every £1 invested in water and toilets returns an average of £4 in increased productivity.[4]
  • Just £15 can provide one person with clean water.[5]

[1] WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG Baselines

[2] WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene: 2017 update and SDG Baselines

[3] Prüss-Ustün et al. (2014) and The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (2018)

[4] World Health organization (2012) Global costs and benefits of drinking-water supply and sanitation interventions to reach the MDG target and universal coverage

[5] www.wateraid.org