WaterAid Australia Launches Shop for Life in an Urgent Christmas Appeal

WaterAid Australia is calling for support to get clean water back on the agenda of the Millennium Development Goals as water poverty continues to claim thousands of lives daily.

Sydney, Australia (PRWEB) December 3, 2008 -- According to WaterAid Australia, the United Nations progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals of Sanitation is one of the most off-track of all other development efforts. Lack of sanitation causing the deaths of millions of children each year, impeding progress in education and health, and preventing economic growth. There is a danger that in sub-Saharan Africa some goals are so far behind that they will not even be met this century.

In an effort to expedite the issues, WaterAid Australia launched Shop for Life (https://shop.wateraidaustralia.org/Default.aspx) this week to urge Christmas shoppers to consider gifts to support basic sanitation in developing worlds. In 2008, 40% of our society, 2.6 billion people is starved of the most basic requirements for life, water and they need action not words.

Adam Laidlaw, CEO of WaterAid Australia, said, "We understand that in the current economic climate people may not consider charitable donations; however the crisis the poorest people in our region are facing everyday is far more desperate than the hardship we face during a temporary recession. By purchasing a WaterAid (https://shop.wateraidaustralia.org/Default.aspx) gift for Christmas, we can make a real difference, with compelling evidence that sanitation brings the greatest single returns on investment of any development intervention, some $9 for every $1 spent."

WaterAid Australia is a specialist water and sanitation charity in Australia committed to bring an end to poverty, the most basic requirement to start the beginning of the end of poverty. With 5,000 children estimated to die on Christmas day alone, the organisation is appealing to Australia's to support its efforts at Christmas to raise much-needed funds to bring a substantial relief effort to developing regions and raise awareness with the United Nations of the desperate need to re-commit to the Millennium Development Goals of Sanitation.

Editors Notes:

Download Blog Badge here: http://www.wateraidbanner.info

Sign the petition here: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/166834?m=d7635e32&recruiter_id=16950069 also direct to www.endwaterpoverty.org

For further information contact:

Fi Bendall, PR & SM Consultant

0431 032 426

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