An update from WaterAid

7th April 2011

If you were one of the thousands of people who visited the WaterAid stand, used a she-pee or checked out the composting loos up in Kings Meadow at Glastonbury Festival last year, thank you!

You helped to make 2010 WaterAid’s best year yet at Glastonbury. Not only did we collect 35,000 signatures raising vital awareness about the global water and sanitation crisis, but we also gave away record numbers of our stylish WaterAid tattoos and thousands of cups of much needed clean water.

WaterAid/ Suzanne Porter

Your support really is helping to change lives. Just one of the many places that WaterAid has been working in is a remote community in Nigeria, improving the sanitation and health of children in schools. Yahna Dinwur is pictured with a boy washing their hands in front of the latrine at their local primary school.

Yahna, a member of the hygiene club, had this to say about the impact of WaterAid’s work on her family: “We are taught to wash our hands before and after we eat and after we defecate. We are also taught the importance of bathing regularly, keeping our nails short and our hair neat and our clothes clean. All these things help to prevent disease. I have four brothers and three sisters and I remind them all to wash their hands regularly. Before it was common for one of us to get sick with the vomiting, but now it is much better. I feel much healthier.”

Following the success of 2010’s festival Barbara Frost, WaterAid’s Chief Executive, visited Michael and Emily Eavis during the summer to ask them about Glasto and all things water and sanitation!

Below is a snippet from their conversations…

"Sanitation is such a basic need for everyone, you would have thought it would have a higher profile than it does," says Emily. "Glastonbury is one of the only times it seems that people make that realisation on such a large scale." In fact, there is no better time to tell people about the 884 million people in the world without clean water and the 2.6 billion who have no toilet than when they’re thirsty and trying to find a decent loo!

The Eavises’ commitment to our work is really inspiring. You can read the whole interview with Michael and Emily on WaterAid’s website by clicking here.