Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion: Our Activities: (1) Trained community members act quickly to protect water sources following severe floods in Malawi. With water sources and latrines destroyed by flooding, Red Cross volunteers know the value of proper water and sanitation thanks to training and experience. (2) Improving access to safe water for vulnerable communities in South Sudan. In South Sudan, two decades of conflict and neglect has made potable water scarce. According to UNICEF, 32 per cent of the population do not have access to clean drinking water and a mere 15 per cent of the population have access to latrines. Furthermore, only 45 per cent of basic primary schools in the country have access to safe water and only 17 percent have adequate sanitation facilities for both girls and boys. As a result of limited access to safe water and adequate sanitation, a third of the children under the age of five suffer from diarrhoea. (3) Global Water and Sanitation Initiative. Increasing access to safe water and sanitation for all: having reached over 15 million people by end of 2015, reach a further 15 million by 2025. The Red Cross Red Crescent Global Water and Sanitation Initiative (GWSI) promotes a common but adaptable approach amongst National Red Cross Red Crescent Societies to establish large-scale, long-term sustainable water and sanitation programmes. It aims to advance efforts in scaling up equitable, sustainable and affordable access to water and sanitation services for all and thus contribute towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Launched in 2005, GWSI was originally planned to target 5 million people over 10 years, but will treble its target by 2015. As global needs remain unfulfilled, the initiative has now been extended another 10 years - until 2025, with an overall goal of 30 million people. (4) Access to safe water has been a turning point for communities in Myanmar. Daw Aye Htwe, a housewife and her husband U San, a casual labourer live in Myanmar's Oak Shit Kone, NatogyItownship, Mandalay division. On average, U San earns between 1,500-2,000 Kyats a day (approximately 1.5 to 2 United States dollars) while his wife takes care of the children and household. The Myanmar Red Cross Society's community-based water and sanitation project has been supported as a Global Water and Sanitation Initiative (GWSI) since 2013. The primary objectives of the programme have been to improve access to safe water, adequate sanitation and hygiene practices of vulnerable communities in what is termed as the dry zone of Myanmar. (5) Safe drinking water and improved sanitation: The key to long-term community health. Every year 22 March marks the World Water Day - a day on which we underscore the critical importance of water and remind ourselves that millions of people around the world do not have access to safe drinking water or adequate sanitation. For most of us, clean water and toilets are something we take for granted but in remote, rural places such as Kratie province in Cambodia, many communities are still drinking unsafe water and practising open defecation, leaving them vulnerable to disease and long-term health problems. "The main problem until today is related to water and sanitation. If the whole community has poor hygiene, they get more disease and spend more time and money on treatment. If we have clean drinking water, not so far from the community, that would be great," says Hang Chansana, Cambodian Red Cross Society's project manager for community health. (6) Increased access to safe water bridges gaps and reduces vulnerabilities. More than 8 million people, i.e. 43 per cent of C?te d'Ivoire's population lack access to adequate sanitation and approximately 4 million people continue to rely on unsafe water sources for their supply of drinking water. As a result, children are dying every day from diarrhoeal and other water-borne related diseases. This is especially true in rural areas. Adjoua, a 55-year-old widow from Ndri Koffikro village located in the prefecture of Guitri recalls that ever since she was young, her community's main priority has been to gain access to safe drinking water. Traditionally, the 2,344 inhabitants of Ndri Koffikro have relied on ponds and a river nestled in a forest 2kms away from the village for their daily supply of drinking water. This meant that women and young girls often had to walk long distances to collect water - in C?te d'Ivoire 86 per cent of the women are responsible for fetching water - which left them little or no time to engage in other activities