News 01.12.11 Every drop counts
Just A Drop is a charity that’s familiar with many in the trade since its launch in 1998, thanks to the tireless campaigning of founder Fiona Jeffery, chair of World Travel Market. But where does all that funding go? Here we profile a project backed by Dubai Tourism
Dubai’s Ian Scott presents a cheque for £7,000 to Just a Drop chairman Fiona Jeffrey
IT’S LITTLE more than 1,000 miles from Dubai to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. But it’s a world away in terms of prosperity and stability. So when Dubai Tourism was looking to get behind clean water charity Just A Drop, a project in the village of Darre in the north-east corner of the country leapt out as one it wanted to support. Villagers needed to raise money
to improve the water supplies to a delivery room at a health centre in the village, in the Panjshir Province, which would dramatically improve sanitation at the site for mothers and babies.
Ian Scott, Dubai Tourism
director UK & Ireland, recalls how its support came about. “I wanted to make corporate social responsibility a bigger part of our business at Dubai Tourism, and I was familiar with Just A Drop because of its high profile in the travel industry,” he says.
16 01.12.2011 “I wanted to come up with a
figure that the 10 of us in the office could raise – and when Fiona Jeffery mentioned the project in Darre would cost £7,000 I asked the team if we could do it. Everyone got behind it at different levels, from a pub quiz to cake sales both in the UK and in Dubai.”
A financial advisor used by one of the team was persuaded to donate their fee to the campaign, while Scott even ran the Dubai marathon earlier in the year, raising more than £3,000 himself. With the £7,000 raised, the
project has already taken shape, with a new sand filter plant on-site ensuring the water is filtered before it enters the delivery room. It wasn’t easy, with the materials needed to complete the work transported over long distances on roads
Dubai Tourism’s project improved the water supply to Darre’s health centre in Afghanistan
CLEAN WATER FOR ALL: Just a Drop raises money to build wells, install boreholes and hand pumps, and carry out sanitation and health education programmes in some of the poorest parts of the developing world. Over 1.1 billion people in the world – roughly one eighth of its total population do not have access to clean, safe water and around 2.5 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation – almost two- fifths of the world’s population. A child dies around every 20 seconds as a result of water-borne diseases. ■
justadrop.co.uk
which often amounted to no more than river beds.
But the work has meant local
women now have confidence in the centre and more are using it to giving birth, which has resulted in lowering the terrible mother and baby mortality rate in the region. Scott adds: “In this country we
drink water every day and take it for granted. For us it seems unbelievable and a basic human right. “We are absolutely delighted to be able to hand over this cheque for £7,000. With a team of 10, I think we’ve shown that smaller businesses can get involved and make a real difference.” What could your business do for Just A Drop?
■If any other travel companies want to step up their own CSR agenda and donate to Just A Drop, contact Fiona at
fiona.jeffery@
reedexpo.co.uk
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