FORUM Teaching water conservation in African schools By Pireh Otieno As part of its Water for African Cities programme UN-HABITAT has embarked on a water education campaign to teach children and local communities about the importance of conservation in an effort to cut back waste. For the first time, this initiative has brought together professionals from the education, urban and water and environment sectors to bring about positive and lasting changes in attitude and behaviour towards water at all levels of society. Children and young people are the best ambassadors to bring about positive changes in attitudes towards water conservation. Water education in schools and local communities can therefore play an important role in bringing about a new water-use ethic in cities. In the Value-based Water Education programme, one of the things schoolchildren are being taught is not to leave taps running unnecessarily. Photo © UN-HABITAT The idea stems from a meeting of international and regional experts in education and water resources management convened by UN-HABITAT in collaboration with UNEP and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2001. NGOs active in water education were also brought in to help devise the best strategy to promote a better understanding of water as a key social, economic and environmental resource. They came up with an approach called Value-based Water Education to impart information on water, sanitation and hygiene and inspire new attitudes that promote wise and sustainable use of water. The Value-based Water Education initiative focuses on three key areas - the establishment of water classrooms, setting up a water curriculum in selected schools as a pilot project, and then helping raise awareness in the local community. UN-HABITAT is working with Swedish Water Development AB (SWD) in establishing on-site water classrooms in each participating country. SWD is helping develop Value-based Water Education resource material, and running training courses for teachers. Non-formal education with community initiatives is centered around children bringing home to their communities what they have learned at school. Pireh Otieno is a Project Officer with UN-HABITAT's Water, Sanitation and Infrastructure Branch. "The centrality of freshwater in our lives cannot be overestimated. Water has been a major factor in the rise and fall of civilizations. It has been a source of tensions and fierce competition between nations that could become even worse if present trends continue. Lack of access to water for meeting basic needs such as health, hygiene and food security undermines development and inflicts enormous hardship on more than a billion members of the human family. And its quality reveals everything, right or wrong, that we do in safeguarding the global environment." — United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan