Weybridge, 22nd March 2005. World Water Day
The UK’s Department for International Development
(DFID) has awarded a grant
of £225,000, through the Business Linkages Challenge Fund,
to P&G Health Science Institute
(NYSE:PG) and its partner
Population Services International (PSI) to save lives in
Haiti by using PUR Purifier of Water to provide safe drinking
water.
Today marks World Water Day, as well as the launch
of the UN International
Decade for Action "Water
for Life", designed to highlight the World Health
Organisation’s concern
that more than one billion people lack safe water and
an estimated two million children die each year because
of diarrhoeal diseases, which could be prevented by
safe drinking water.
PUR is a simple, low-cost water purifier which has
already saved countless
lives by supplying more
than 200 million litres of drinking water in emergency
situations throughout the world – particularly in Tsunami
hit regions, as well as other countries such as Botswana
, Chad , Malawi , Liberia and Zimbabwe .
So far, PUR sachets have provided almost 3 million
litres of drinking water
to Haiti , which has
long suffered from access
to clean water, with
the problem exacerbated throughout the last year due
to civil unrest, severe flooding and heavy damage from
hurricanes. This timely grant should not only reduce
the number of Haitians suffering from illnesses such
as diarrhoea and cholera induced by drinking contaminated
water by up to 50 per cent, but with diarrhoeal diseases
being the primary case of death in infants, the mortality
rate should significantly fall. In this project PUR
will be distributed by PSI Haiti through
their network of women’s
groups.
According to P&G’s Associate Director for Corporate
Sustainable Development
in Europe, Dr Peter White,
“We are delighted to
have received this grant from DFID to really help improve
the lives of those in Haiti . With our partners we
have made significant progress with PUR and we will
continue to focus our efforts in countries where clean
water is desperately needed”.
Amelia Shaw , PSI Haiti added “ In Gonaives, PSI distributed
more than 410,000 sachets following the flooding last
September. After using PUR regularly for one month, one
woman from the flood zone commented, ‘Before, my stomach
hurt all the time. But now it doesn't hurt anymore. To
think, I didn't even know you could live like that, without
pain in your belly’”.
Welcoming the announcement of the grant, the UK Secretary
of State for International
Development, Hilary Benn
said: “Hundreds of people have been killed and nearly
half a million people have lost their homes in the
aftermath of the floods in Haiti. Only ten per cent
of Haitians get piped water in their homes so our contribution
will help to ensure that those affected will now have
access to safe drinking water. A water-borne disease
such as diarrhoea kills nearly half of all infants
in rural areas of Haiti but by working in partnership
with P&G Health
Science Institute and
NGO’s we will give people
a better quality of life and hope for the future”.
- Ends -
Journalists - for further
information please contact :
P&G Press Office Tel : 0191-297-6262 or
e-mail : pgpress.im@pg.com
About P&G
Procter & Gamble (P&G) is one of the largest
consumer products companies
in the world. The company
has around 110,000 employees
working in almost 80
countries worldwide. Two billion times a day, P&G
brands touch the lives of people
around the world. P&G provides
technical, marketing,
and research and development
capabilities in relation
to its new in-home water
purification technology. The PUR Purifier of Water
technology was developed in cooperation with the U.S
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and
has been shown to reduce significantly diarrhoeal illness
in the developing world. For more information about
PUR, please visit our website www.pghsi.com.
The P&G Health Sciences Institute is dedicated
to identifying, developing,
and using leading health care technologies in the development
of effective products for both the developing and developed
world (www.pghsi.com).
About PSI
Populations Services International (PSI) is a non-profit
organisation that combines
commercial tools with a
social mission of achieving measurable health impact.
Since 1972, PSI has used social marketing to improve
health and save lives. Through health programmes in more
than 70 countries on five continents, PSI distributes
affordable, accessible
and attractive health products and services, and motivates
other types of healthy behaviour, in HIV/AIDS, family
planning, malaria, safe water and nutrition. In 2004,
PSI's safe water system prevented the deaths of an estimated
40,000 children. For further information, please visit
our website at www.psi.org
About Business Linkages Challenge Fund
The BLCF supports private sector partnerships that
both promote commercial
benefits to participating
business enterprises and
help to reduce poverty.
Companies receive funding
to increase access to markets,
transfer technology, improve
competitiveness, or address
the policy and regulatory
environment for business.
It is managed on behalf
of DFID by the Emerging
Markets Group, an independent
firm associated with Deloitte
Touche Tohmatsu, with support
from Deloitte offices in
BLCF target countries,
Enterplan, and Project
North East. For further
information, please visit
our website at www.businesslinkageschallengefund.org
