Women 4 Water Campaign

Events & Campaigns

Women 4 Water Campaign

Women for Water

The celebrations of International Women’s Day and World Water Day are only two weeks apart. Although it most certainly was not intentional, it makes perfect sense because water is a women’s issue!

Water is an existential issue for women in particular, because from a global perspective and because of their biological disposition, they are most likely to suffer from the lack of it. On the one hand, their bladders are smaller than those of men, on the other hand, the lack of sanitary facilities is directly associated with a drop in the level of education and the increased risk of an assault. Amira Jehia, co-founder of Drip by Drip, wrote an article on International Women’s Day 2019 that sheds light on the individual levels of the problem.

Unfortunately, the topic has not yet been sufficiently linked to the fashion consumption behavior of the Global North, though it is part of the solution. As the second dirtiest industry in the world, the fashion industry is jointly responsible for the enormous pollution of our natural water resources. At the same time, over 80% of textile workers are women – women who often live near the factories and who (must) consume groundwater, some of which is severely poisoned.

To explain the connection between women, water and fashion, we have portrayed five women who actively stand up for other women while empowering and informing them at the same time. They were portrayed in front of original artwork created especially for this campaign by artist Ina Cierniak.

From March 8th – World Women’s Day – to March 22nd – World Water Day –, we provided facts and figures about the underlying issues on our Instagram account.

With this campaign, we aimed to draw attention to the unique situation where women are significant consumers of fashion, while at the same time, supporting the system that causes women who work in the industry to suffer directly from the production of increasingly cheaper clothing.

After the campaign, we auctioned the artworks to collect funds for our water filters for textile workers and their families in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Each filter can provide clean drinking water for at least 10 years to over 90 families – around 500 people! That way our virtual campaign had a practical impact.