Case study - Charity and community work

We aim to work with communities to help raise awareness on water issues such as water conservation, keep them informed of work we are doing in their area and help improve their environment.

This includes voluntary community investment and work with a wide range of charities, both within our region and on an international scale.

Wessex Watermark

Close to home, our Wessex Watermark awards offer environmental grants to a wide range of groups, schools, councils and other organisations within our region.

We have been pleased to help a number of local projects during 2009-10, including:

• contributing towards a new environmental green centre at Corpus Christi Catholic School in Dorset
• helping a village composting scheme take root at Wellow Community Compost Club
• assist Silverhill School in Winterbourne, South Gloucestershire, to create a wildlife area
• support Christchurch Harbour Ornithological Group to construct a specially designed floating island for nesting terns at a designated site in the harbour.

WaterAid

WaterAid’s work is extremely important, not only to those who benefit from the projects but also to us and our suppliers. It helps us to remember the value of water.

Many of us will turn on a tap, take a glass of water and not even think of where it came from, but in many countries that is all they live for and collecting water is a daily task. WaterAid’s work demonstrates to everyone the value of water.

We have two dedicated programmes that help support WaterAid by raising funds, support and awareness amongst our staff and suppliers with further material produced with our bills to help inform our customers.

Wessex4West Africa

Over the last 27 years staff, customers and contractors of Wessex Water have raised more than £8 million for WaterAid.

By way of celebrating this achievement and highlighting the continued struggle by the world's poor to gain access to clean water and safe sanitation, Wessex Water launched Wessex for West Africa (W4WA) in 2008.

The aim of this project is to grow support for WaterAid year on year and generate even more money to support future projects.

The initiative, between Wessex Water and key suppliers, aims to raise support for WaterAid throughout West Africa by inviting companies to become more involved with the charity while raising awareness throughout their own organisations.

By joining this initiative partner companies commit to raising £10,000 over the year through fundraising activities with their own staff and supply chains.

Partners are also able to put a candidate through the Business4Life training programme, a management development programme that generates funds for WaterAid while helping to develop the business skills of the young professionals on the scheme.

Since W4WA first started in 2008 it has been a resounding success. By the end of 2009 the scheme raised more than £100,000 and this year we are hoping it does even better.

Business4Life

This year’s team was tasked with raising £30,000 over the year, using the skills and knowledge they learn through the training scheme to set up a virtual business. The profits are income for WaterAid. The scheme benefits all involved:

• the candidates gain through personal development
• the companies they work for benefit from the training and development of their staff
• WaterAid receives the direct income from the scheme.

Comprising 12 participants from Wessex Water and other local business, the team started in December 2009 and had raised £8,600 by June 2010.

Part of this was raised through personal fundraising events that have included a Christmas quiz, three half marathons and a bungee jump, with other activities planned for later in the year including a skydive and a five peaks challenge.

To see an update on how they are doing and offer your support please visit their website www.b4l.org.uk

PAWS – Partners for Water and Sanitation campaign

PAWS was established in 2002 following the World Summit on Sustainable Development which agreed the goal of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation by 2015.

PAWS has a membership that encompasses government departments, NGOs, law firms and private water companies and welcomes the resources and experience of the UK water industry to share knowledge on a range of projects.

Wessex Water actively encourages its staff to get involved with staff from other partners on projects that have been identified and prioritised for PAWS support, creating multi-disciplinary project teams.

Recently two members of our staff met the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Kent to explain how their trip to the KwaZulu-Natal province helped benefit various parts of the water infrastructure in Ugu district municipality (UDM).

Andy Cox and Nick Mitchell (pictured) had meetings with personnel from the water authority in UDM, provided a number of workshops and reviewed the current treatment and supply processes in place across the region before providing a series of recommendations to feed into the local water authority’s implementation plan to improve service, efficiency and reliability.