To coincide with the UN's World Water Day, 22 March 2010, we are delighted to be launching our dedicated website on Faith Schools and Water. The website will focus on the faiths protecting water sources, promoting clean water, good sanitation and excellent hygiene practices through faith schools around the world. 

Linking faith with water facilities and school toilets does not sound like an obvious step, yet it can make a vital difference. 

Water is central to many religions. As the source of life, it often represents birth and rebirth. It cleans the body, and by extension purifies it, and these two main qualities confer a highly sacred status on water. This is reflected in the way people use water, in the way they design water systems and the need for accessibility of water for washing after toilet use or washing hands.

Water provision for drinking, hand washing, flushing, cleaning, school meal preparation and the provision of clean toilets and urinals in schools are vital to keep children healthy. Anybody with children in school knows that schools are places where children get infected. They are places where many children gather in often cramped spaces with limited ventilation, bad hygienic conditions, no hand washing. And the habits they learn in school, whether good or bad, are often the habits that stay with them throughout their lives, which they pass on to their own children.

Faith Schools & Water has been set up as a direct result of the inaugural Faith in Water meeting in Salisbury in July 2009, organised jointly by the Dutch Ecological Management Foundation (EMF), ARC, and the International Water and Sanitation Centre (IRC). 

We are supported by ARC, EMF, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Norwegian Government's Environment and Sustainable Development Programme.

Food For Life School in Vrindavan teaches children the importance of washing. Photo: ARC